. 

UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 

HIMIIIII 

aC<ooo  oinco  t-^<d  < 

The 

University 

of  Hard  Knocks 

The  School  Thai  Completes 
Our  Education 


"He  that  overcometh  shall  inherit  all 
things;  and  I  will  be  his  God,  and  he  shall 
be  my  son." 

—Revelation  21:7 


"Sweet  are  the  uses  of  adversity; 

Which,  like  the  toad,  ugly  and  venomous. 

Wears  yet  a  precious  jewel  in  his  head; 

And    thus    our    life,    exempt    from    public 
haunt, 

Mnds  tongues  in  trees,  books  in  running 
brooks, 

Sermons   in   stones,    and   good   in   every- 
thing." 

— Shakespeare 


A  Lyceum  and  Chautauqua  Lecture  deliv- 
ered since  1904  by  Ralph  Parlette,  Editor 
of  The  Lyceum  Magazine,  Chicago 


COPYRIGHT,  1914,  1915 

By  The  Parlette-Padget  Company 

Publishers 

Peoples  Gas  Building 

Chicago 


First   Edition,    September,   1914 
Second    Edition,    January,    1916 


Perhaps  a  Million  People 

HAVE  PAID  their  money  up  to  date  to 
hear  "The  University  of  Hard  Knocks" 
in  Lyceum  Courses,  Chautauquas, 
Teachers'  Institutes,  Club  Gatherings  and 
other  assemblages.  Perhaps  a  thousand  peo- 
ple have  asked  if  the  lecture  could  be  got- 
ten In  book  form.  Perhaps  a  thousand  more 
have  written  about  it. 

That  is  why  it  is  here  in  book  form.  This 
is  what  they  heard — or  a  part  of  it,  for  I 
have  gathered  up  the  overflow  of  many  even- 
ings and  printed  it.  What  is  written  here 
isn't  the  way  I  would  write  it;  it  is  the  way 
I  said  it.  The  lecture  took  this  unconscious 
colloquial  form  before  audiences.  An  audi- 
ence makes  a  lecture,  if  the  lecture  survives. 
The  first  personal  pronoun  may  seem  to  be 
overworked,  because  this  is  more  a  confes- 
sion than  a  lecture,  and  you  can't  confess 
without  saying  "I." 

I  am  just  beginning  to  learn  things.  Ev- 
ery day  I  seem  to  learn  better,  and  see  bet- 
ter about  something.  I  ought  to  wait  till  to- 
morrow to  print  this  lecture,  for  tomorrow 
I  shall  know  more  and  see  how  poor  this 
lecture  is. 

But  it  is  the  best  and  sincerest  I  can  do 
today.  And  you  folks  asked  for  it  today. 
I  wish  I  could  shake  the  hand  of  every  one 
of  you  and  personally  thank  you. 


Ralph  Parlette. 


The  Lyceum  Magazine, 

Chicago, 

Sept.  1,  1914. 


What  It's  All  About 

NOBODY  CAN  CnVE  US  OR  BUY  US  AN 
EDUCATION.    We  earn  it  in  The  Uni- 
versity of  Hard  Knocks — the  School  of 
Service.     Books  and  Colleges  only  give  us 
Bome  tools — some  of  the  best  tools  in  the 
world. 

We  must  use  the  tools  in  the  School  of 
Service.  It  is  the  Service,  the  Struggle,  the 
Sacrifice,  the  Overcoming,  the  Achievement, 
that  brings  the  Knowing,  the  Understanding, 
the  Success,  the  Happiness,  the  Strength,  the 
Greatness,  the  Life. 

"He  who  would  be  greatest  among  you,  let 
him  become  the  Greatest  Servant."  For 
Greatness  is  merely  ability  to  carry  great 
loads,  to  serve  greatly. 

You  cannot  buy  a  great  arm;  you  earn  it  in 
physical  service. 

You  cannot  buy  a  great  mind;  you  earn  it 
in  mental  service. 

You  cannot  buy  a  great  character;  you 
earn  it  in  moral  service. 

The  University  of  Hard  Knocks  is  divided 
Into  two  great  colleges — The  College  of  Need- 
less Knocks  (where  we  get  our  "bad  luck") 
and  the  College  of  Needful  Knocks  (where  we 
get  our  "good  luck").    Every  bump  is  a  les- 


son.  We  learn  so  slowly  (it  takes  most  of 
our  lives  to  learn  a  few  little  lessons)  be- 
cause most  of  us  are  "naturally  bright." 

We  don't  know  what  we  have  memorized; 
we  only  know  what  we  have  vitalized.  We 
only  know  what  we  have  lived.  We  only 
know  what  the  courts  will  take  as  evidence 
when  they  swear  us  in  as  witnesses. 

How  long  will  America  be  strong  and  go 
forward?  It  will  depend  upon  how  many 
"Gussle"  children  we  raise. 

We  are  not  growing  old;  we  are  growing 
eternally  young.  All  our  life  up  to  today  has 
been  merely  preparation  for  today.  This  is 
the  greatest,  wisest,  happiest  day  in  all  our 
lives. 

We  have  finished  our  education  when  all 
the  strife,  discord,  evil,  have  been  pounded 
out  of  our  lives,  and  when  Peace,  Harmony, 
Love,  Wisdom  and  Understanding  fill  them. 
Eternity  alone  can  finish  our  Education. 

As  we  overcome,  we  ascend  the  Mountain 
of  Life.  We  rise  above  the  legacy  of  our 
limitations.  We  rise  above  troubles  and 
storms  into  the  sunshine.  We  rise  to  life's 
mountain  summit  and  see  the  night  below  us. 
We  have  reached  the  new  eternal  day  on  the 
summit — God's  Commencement  Day! 


(Bob  Melp  iri0 


To  Know  We  are  Little  Children,  Always 
Growing  UP,  but  Never  Finishing 


*      * 


(Bob  Help  1Il0 


To  Keep  On  "Going  South" 

To  Keep  On  Serving 

To  Keep  On  Overcoming 
That 
Our  Days  may  be  Longer,  Stronger,  Happier 

That 
We  may  have  All  The  Good  Things  of  Life 

That 
We  may  not  "Rattle" 

*      *      * 


6ob  Melp  '^B 

To  Know  That 

YESTERDAY  is  Dead 

TODAY  is  the  Best  Day  of  Our  Life 

TOMORROW  is  Going  to  be  Better 


The  University  of  Hard 
Knocks 


The  Two  Colleges 

ALL  OVER  this  land  are  fathers  and 
mothers    saying,    "We   haven't   had 
much  chance  in  our  lives,  but  we  are 
going  to  give  our  children  every  chance.    We 
are  going  to  give  our  children  the  best  edu- 
cation OUR  money  can  buy. 

They  think  they  can  buy  an  education  and 
give  it  to  their  children  C.O.D.! 

But  they  cannot  do  it.  They  can  only 
open  the  gate  and  say,  "Sic  'em,  Tige!" 

They  can  put  money  in  their  children's 
pockets,  ideas  in  their  heads  and  food  in  their 
stomachs.  But  the  children  do  not  yet  own 
it — they  must  digest  it. 

We  only  own  what  we  earn.  We  only 
know  what  we  have  lived.    We  only  imder- 

7 


The  University  of  Hard  Knocks 

stand  what  we  have  proven  in  the  labora- 
tories of  our  experience. 
We  can't  get  something  for  nothing. 


We  do  not  learn  from  books,  we  learn 
from  bumps. 

We  learn  in  the  one  great  school — The 
University  of  Hard  Knocks.  Its  playground 
is  the  universe ;  its  president  is  the  Almighty. 

Here  we  learn  all  we  ever  know,  and 
write  it  in  the  only  book  we  ever  own — The 
Book  of  Our  Experience. 

Every  bump  we  get  is  a  lesson.  If  we 
learn  the  lesson  with  one  bump,  we  don't 
get  that  bump  any  more;  we  get  promoted 
to  the  next  bump.  But  if  we  are  "naturally 
bright"  or  there  is  something  else  the  matter 
with  us  (and  really  about  the  worst  thing 
that  can  be  the  matter  with  us  is  to  be  "nat- 
urally bright"  and  know  it!),  so  that  we 
don't  learn  that  lesson  with  one  bump,  then 
that  same  bump  has  to  come  back  and  bump 
us  again,  and  again,  and  again,  until  we  do 
learn  it.    Afterwhile  we  realize  in  the  Ian- 


The  Two  Colleges 

guage  of  Shakespeare  or  somebody,  "Every 
little  bumplet  has  a  meaning  all  its  own." 

As  we  get  wiser  and  sort  out  our  bumps, 
we  discover  we  have  had  two  kinds  of  bumps 
— bumps  that  we  needed,  and  bumps  that 
we  did  not  need.  Bumps  that  we  bumped 
into  and  bumps  that  bumped  into  us. 

That  is,  we  discover  that  The  University 
of  Hard  Knocks  has  two  colleges — The  Col- 
lege of  Needless  Knocks  and  The  College 
of  Needful  Knocks. 

Children,  I  am  afraid  you  won't  believe 
what  I  am  going  to  say.  You  can't  tell 
young  people  anything.  They  are  "natur- 
ally bright"  and  know  better.  So  you'll  just 
have  to  bump  your  heads  where  we  older 
ones  have  bumped  our  heads!  But  if  you'll 
remember  what  I  am  going  to  say,  it  will 
feel  like  a  poultice  after  while. 
*     *     * 

The  Needless  Knocks 

AH!  How  I  remember  one  early  Need- 
less Knock!    It  was  back  at  the  time 
when  I  was  trying  to  run  our  home 
to  suit  myself.    I  sat  in  the  highest  chair  in 

9 


The  University  of  Hard  Knocks 

the  family  circle!  I  was  four  years  old  and 
ready  to  graduate.  That  day  they  had  me 
in  my  little  high-chair  throne  right  up  be- 
side the  dinner-table.  The  coffee-pot  was 
within  grabbing  distance. 

I  became  enamored  with  that  coffee-pot. 
I  decided  I  needed  it  in  my  business.  I 
reached  over  there  to  get  the  coffee-pot. 
Just  then  I  discovered  a  woman  beside  me. 
She  was  the  most  meddlesome  woman  I  had 
ever  known.  I  hadn't  tried  to  do  a  thing  in 
four  years  that  woman  hadn't  tried  to  "butt 
in  on"  and  stop. 

I  did  want  that  coffee-pot.  Nobody  knows 
how  I  wanted  that  coffee-pot!  One  thing 
thou  lackest — a  coffee-pot!  Just  as  I  was 
going  to  get  it,  that  woman  said,  "Don't 
touch  that!" 

The  longer  I  thought  about  it  the  mad- 
der I  became.  What  right  has  this  female 
to  interfere  with  every  plan  I  make?  Now 
I've  stood  this  petticoat  tyranny  four  years, 
and  it's  time  to  stop  it.  (I  thought  this,  I 
did  not  say  it.  There  is  a  fine  point. )  Then 
I  stopped  it.  I  got  the  coffee-pot.  I  know 
I  got  the  coffee-pot.    I  got  it  unanimously ! 

10 


The  Two  Colleges 

I  know  when  I  got  it,  and  I  know  where  I 
got  it!  I  spilled  about  a  gallon  of  that 
redhot  juice  all  over  me.    I  can  feel  it  yet! 

There  were  weeks  after  that  when  I  was 
upholstered.  They  put  applebutter  on  me, 
and  kerosene,  and  starch,  and  white-of-an- 
egg  and  rags,  and  anything  the  neighbors 
could  think  of,  they  brought  over  and 
rubbed  on  little  Ralphie.  Because  I  had 
gotten  the  coffee-pot.  Because  I  had  had 
my  own  little  foolish  way. 

My  mother  had  a  queer  way  of  only  tell- 
ing me  once.  She  wouldn't  repeat  or  argue 
it.  She'd  say,  "Don't!"  and  then  she'd  go 
on  with  her  knitting.  Why  don't  mothers 
knit  any  more? 

I  could  go  ahead  and  do  it  after  that.  She 
wouldn't  even  look  at  me.  The  neighbors 
used  to  say  my  mother  was  cruel  with  that 
"angel  child."  But  the  neighbors  never  knew 
what  kind  of  an  insect  she  was  trying  to 
raise.  That  was  the  quickest,  kindest  and 
best  way  to  teach  a  little  stubborn,  self-willed 
boy  like  myself  that  if  he  didn't  hear  her  that 
oi-ice — and  heed,  then  go  on,  Ralphie,  your 
coffee-pot  is  ready. 

11 


The  University  of  Hard  Knocks 

It  was  always  ready.  I  never  disobeyed 
my  mother  in  my  life  that  a  coffee-pot  didn't 
spill  on  me  and  I  got  my  blisters.  She  didn't 
injflict  them.  She  wasn't  much  of  an  inflicter. 
Father  attended  to  that  in  the  laboratory 
back  of  the  parsonage ! 

Yes,  you're  right.    I'm  one  of  them  I 
*     *     * 

The  years  that  since  have  passed  have 
taught  me  that  the  College  of  Needless 
Knocks  is  run  on  the  same  plan.  The  Voice 
of  Wisdom  says  to  each  of  us,  "Child  of  hu- 
manity, walk  in  the  right  path;  you'll  be 
wiser  and  happier."  Then  we  are  not 
stopped.  We  are  told  to  do  right,  but  we  are 
not  compelled  to  do  right. 

We  are  free  im-moral  agents! 

We  get  off  the  right  path,  get  on  a  wrong 
path,  and  it  seems  fine.  It  leads  downward, 
and  therefore  is  so  easy  to  walk  in,  for  we 
just  slide  downward.  Paths  that  lead  up- 
ward are  harder  to  walk  in,  for  they  require 
climbing.  Sooner  or  later  the  coffee-pot 
spills;  we  get  our  blisters  and  Needless 
Knocks.  If  you  haven't  gotten  them,  you 
have  them  coming. 

12 


The  Two  Colleges 

I  used  to  call  them  my  "bad  luck."  I 
know  better  now;  they  are  the  punishment 
for  our  sins.  And  lucky  are  we  if  we  learn 
the  lesson  with  one  bump.  One  time  at  a  fair 
I  paid  a  seeress  two  dollars  to  look  into  my 
honest  palm.  Then  she  said:  "It  hain't  your 
fault — you  wasn't  born  right,  you  was  born 
under  an  unlucky  star!"  You  don't  know 
how  good  that  made  me  feel!  It  wasn't  my 
fault,  I  was  just  unlucky  and  it  had  to  be. 
But  now  I  know  better.  I  know  we  all  get 
bumped  and  the  lucky  one  is  the  one  who 
learns  the  lesson  with  one  bump  and  doesn't 
get  bumped  twice  in  the  same  place.  Next 
time  he  sees  that  bump  coming  he  says,  "Ex- 
cuse me,  it  hath  a  familiar  look,"  and  he 
dodges  it. 

If  you  are  just  drifting  in  your  life,  de- 
pend upon  it,  you  are  going  downward.  You 
cannot  go  upward  without  overcoming.  Also 
notice  that  anything  that  runs  itself,  runs 
downward.  Churches,  schools,  lyceum 
courses,  chautauquas,  reform  movements — 
everything  that  leads  upward — never  run 
themselves ;  they  must  be  pushed  every  min- 
^ite.  ^     ^     ^ 

13 


The  University  of  Hard  Knocks 

Human  life  is  the  Parable  of  the  Prodigal 
Son.  We  leave  the  Father's  House  of  Wis- 
dom to  see  the  world.  Down  the  Great 
White  Way  of  Artificial  Life  go  the  million 
prodigals,  all  seeking  happiness.  Their  days 
fill  up  with  emptiness  and  disappointment, 
their  lives  fill  up  with  husks.  Then  as  they 
are  bumped  they  think  upon  their  ways. 
Whenever  anybody  can  be  induced  to  think 
upon  his  ways  he  will  see  the  emptiness  of 
any  life  that  is  not  growing  in  Wisdom  and 
Strength,  and  arise  and  go  back  to  his  Fath- 
er's House. 

The  devil  is  so  busy  with  rattleboxes  and 
razzledazzle,  to  keep  people  doped  so  that 
they  will  not  think  upon  their  ways.  If  you 
can't  get  a  person  to  thinking,  you  can't  help 
him.  And  it's  mighty  hard  to  get  a  young 
person  to  think.  They  know  better.  They 
are  "naturally  bright"  and  they  can  avoid  the 
pitfalls  and  bumps  that  have  wrecked  the  mil- 
lions. They  just  have  to  get  their  coffee- 
pots. They  just  have  to  slide  along  amused 
and  doped  every  minute. 

So  the  Needless  Knocks  must  come,  and 
either  knock  them  back  to  the  right  or  knock 

14 


The  Two  Colleges 

them  out  of  existence.  How  often  we  write 
into  resolutions  of  respect,  "Whereas,  it  has 
pleased  an  Allwise  Providence  to  remove," 
when  Providence  didn't  have  anything  at 
all  to  do  with  it.  He  was  just  knocked  out. 
There's  so  much  suicide  charged  up  to 
Providence  I 


The  Needful  Knocks 

BUT  all  of  us  have  had  bumps  that  we 
didn't  bump  into.  They  came  bump- 
ing into  us.  Some  of  them  almost 
crushed  us.  They  gave  us  cruel  pain,  and 
perhaps  we  haven't  gotten  over  them  yet. 
Some  day  we  shall  see,  if  we  haven't  already 
seen,  that  they  were  Needful  Knocks.  We 
needed  them,  because  everything  has  to  be 
pounded  before  it  fits,  and  you  and  I  are  be- 
ing fitted  with  these  Needful  Knocks. 

One  day  I  was  up  the  Missabe  road  about 
a  hundred  miles  north  of  Duluth,  Minnesota, 
and  came  to  a  hole  in  the  ground.  It  was  a 
big  hole — about  half-a-mile  of  hole.  There 
were  steam-shovels  at  work  throwing  out  of 
the  hole  what  I  thought  was  red  mud.     I 

15 


The  University  of  Hard  Knocks 

asked  the  man  on  the  bank,  "Kind  sir,  what 
is  this  red  mud?" 

The  man  on  the  bank  was  a  native  and 
properly  insulted.  "That  hain't  red  mud; 
that's  iron  ore,  an'  it's  the  best  iron  ore  in 
the  world." 

"What  is  that  iron  ore  worth?" 

"It  hain't  worth  nothin'  here.  That's  the 
reason  we're  movin'  it." 

Wasn't  that  good?  There's  red  mud 
around  every  community  that  "hain't  worth 
nothin',"  and  you'd  do  it  a  favor  to  move  it. 
Send  it  to  college,  for  instance! 

Not  very  long  after  this,  near  Pittsburgh, 
Pennsylvania,  I  saw  this  same  red  mud.  It 
had  been  moved  over  the  Great  Lakes  and 
over  the  rails  to  what  they  call  a  blast  fur- 
nace, but  the  technological  name  is  The  Col- 
lege of  Needful  Knocks  for  Red  Mud. 

I  saw  the  red  mud  matriculate — saw  it 
matriculate  down  into  a  big  hopper  with 
limestone  and  charcoal  and  other  textbooks. 
Then  they  corked  it  up  and  school  began. 
They  roasted  it.  It's  a  great  thing  to  be 
roasted.  When  it  was  done  roasting  they 
stopped. 

16 


The  Two  Colleges 

They  always  stop  roasting  when  we're 
done.  If  we  are  yet  getting  roasted,  the 
probabilities  are  we  are  not  yet  done. 

Then  they  pulled  the  plug  out  of  the  bot- 
tom of  the  college  and  had  promotion  exer- 
cises. The  red  mud  squirted  out  into  the 
sand.  It  wasn't  red  mud  now,  because  it  had 
been  roasted.  It  was  a  freshman,  pig  iron, 
worth  more  money  than  red  mud,  because  it 
had  been  roasted. 

The  pig  iron  that  held  out  faithful  went 
up  into  another  department,  a  big  teakettle 
thing,  where  it  was  roasted  again,  and  now 
it  came  out  a  sophomore,  steel,  worth  more 
money  than  pig  iron. 

The  sophomore  steel  that  held  out  faithful 
went  into  another  department  where,  after 
they  roasted  it,  they  rolled  it  out  thin  into  a 
junior. 

Some  of  it  went  on  farther  and  had  so  much 
more  trouble  and  affliction.  The  red  mud 
didn't  ask  to  be  taken  out  of  the  hole  in  the 
ground.  They  just  came  and  took  it.  They 
went  on  day  after  day  bumping  it  and  roast- 
ing it.    They  slapped  it,  they  stamped  upon 

17 


The  University  of  Hard  Knocks 

it,  they  twisted  it,  fashioned  it,  formed  it. 
They  hurt  its  feehngs.    They  insulted  itl 

I  hear  that  red  mud  crying  out,  "O,  help  I 
help  I  They're  killing  me !  I  can't  stand  this 
trouble  I  Why  did  they  take  me  from  my 
happy  hole-in-the-ground?  I  have  been 
good  and  honest,  and  yet  they  pound  me  and 
afflict  me  and  break  my  heart.  O,  I'll  never 
get  over  this.  They'll  never  know  me  back 
in  the  hole  in  the  ground." 

But  after  that  they  gave  it  a  diploma — a 
price-mark  telling  how  much  it  had  been 
bumped.  Nobody  wanted  the  red  mud  as 
long  as  it  lay  there  in  the  hole-in-the-ground. 

Nobody  wants  a  loafer! 

But  everybody  wanted  it  after  it  had  been 
bumped  and  roasted.  They  paid  the  most 
money  for  what  had  been  bumped  and 
roasted  the  most.  Now  they  sent  it  all  over 
the  world.  They  hung  it  in  glass  cases,  and 
the  people  said,  "Isn't  that  fine.  We  must 
have  some  of  that."  If  a  ton  of  that  red  mud 
had  become  watch-springs  or  razor-blades, 
the  price  had  gone  up  into  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  dollars. 

Fellow   sufferers,   all  of   us   have   to   be 

18 


The  Two  Colleges 

bumped  and  roasted  before  we  get  into  a 
glass  case.  The  difference  between  the 
chunk  of  coal  and  the  diamond  is  the  Need- 
ful Knocks.  There  is  no  human  diamond 
that  has  not  been  crystallized  in  the  crucible 
of  affliction.  There  is  no  great  life  that  has 
not  known  the  great  crises  of  life. 

Cheer  up  when  the  Needful  Knocks  come. 
Every  bump  is  raising  our  price! 


How  THE  Mississippi  Becomes  the  Father 
OF  Waters 

GO  BACK  to  Minnesota.    There  is  a 
little  silvery  sheet  of  water  they  call 
Lake  Itasca.    There  is  a  place  where 
a  little  stream  leaps  out  of  the  lake.   "AVhat 
is  this  little  creek?"  you  ask  Jim,  who  rows 
the  boat. 

"Creek!"  snorts  Jim.  "That  hain't  no 
creek!    That's  the  Mississippi  River!" 

The  Mississippi  River — the  Father  of  Wa- 
ters— that  consumptive  little  streamlet! 
Better  take  it  in  at  night;  somebody'll  steal 
it.     So  even  the  Father  of  Waters  has  to 

19 


The  University  of  Hard  Knocks 

start  as  a  baby!  Here  we  are  where  that 
little  Mississippi  goes  wabbling  out  from  his 
cradle  as  unsteady  as  a  calf  on  his  new  legs. 
He  doesn't  know  where  he  is  going,  but  he  is 
"on  the  way." 

He  wabbles  around  over  counties  until  he 
comes  to  the  place  where  you  and  I  come 
sooner  or  later.  It  is  the  place  where  Saul 
came  on  the  road  to  Damascus.  It  is  the 
place  of  the  Heavenly  Vision,  or  the  Grand 
Bump.  The  place  where  we  know  which 
way  we  are  to  go.  If  you  haven't  heard  the 
call,  keep  your  ear  to  the  receiver  and  you 
will  hear  it.  Here  gravity  calls  to  the  Mis- 
sippi,  "O,  little  stream  wandering  thru  Min- 
nesota, do  you  want  to  grow?  Then  you'll 
have  to  come  south.  Do  you  want  to  become 
the  Father  of  Waters?  Then  you'll  have  to 
come  south." 

The  little  stream  listens,  then  starts  south. 
You  never  meet  him  after  that  but  what  he 
is  going  south.  You  never  meet  him  but 
what  he  says,  "Excuse  me,  but  I  cannot  stop 
— I  must  keep  on  going  south." 

He  doesn't  branch  out. 

20 


The  Two  Colleges 

He  specializes  on  going  south.  He  has 
just  one  business  in  life,  Going  South. 

He  starts  out  in  North  Minnesota  just  like 
a  boy  or  girl  who  gets  the  vision  and  call  to 
do  something.  "Good  bye,  folks,  I'm  going 
south."  And  you  can  almost  hear  the  wise 
men  on  the  store-boxes  saying,  "Why,  Mis- 
sissippi, you  hain't  got  water  enough  to  get 
out  of  the  county.  You  stay  where  you  are. 
We  know  your  folks."  "Is  not  this  the  car- 
penter's son?" 

But  the  Mississippi  doesn't  try  to  get  out 
of  the  county;  he  just  tries  to  get  south. 
He  hasn't  much  water,  but  he  doesn't  wait 
for  a  relative  to  die  and  leave  him  some 
water.  He  starts  with  what  water  he  has. 
He  doesn't  know  it  is  fifteen  hundred  miles 
to  the  gulf.  You  and  I  don't  know  how  far 
it  is  to  our  goal.  I'm  so  glad  of  that — so 
glad  we  don't  know  the  struggles  and  the 
bumps  coming.  But  there  is  just  one  thing 
we  can  know — the  direction. 

And  we  all  have  enough  water  to  start! 

The  Mississippi  meets  a  stream  the  very 
first  day.  He  picks  up  the  stream  and  has 
some  more  water.    He's  a  little  bigger  now 

21 


The  University  of  Hard  Knocks 

and  farther  south.  Next  day  he  picks  up 
another  stream  and  makes  it  Mississippi.  So 
he  goes  on  south  picking  up  brooklets, 
streamlets  and  rivulets.  Business  is  picking 
up! 

Every  day  he  grows  as  he  goes  south. 
Presently  you  can  hear  the  same  wise  men 
back  on  the  store-boxes  saying,  "I  always 
told  you  that  Mississippi  would  get  there!" 

You  always  hear  that  after  you  begin  to 
succeed.  You  always  hear  them  saying  you 
were  somehow  born  lucky.  The  home  town 
is  the  slowest  to  credit  you  with  success,  but 
after  the  outside  world  has  labeled  you  a 
success,  the  home  town  overcredits  you. 

Generally  you  are  dead  about  a  hundred 
years  before  the  home  town  band  plays  for 
you. 

Aren't   you   glad   the   Mississippi   went 
south?    Had  he  gone  any  other  direction  he 
would  have  been  lost  in  the  woods. 
*     *     * 

The  Mississippi  gets  to  Minneapolis  and 
St.  Paul.  Here  are  the  Twin  Cities  that 
ought  to  meet  the  Mississippi  with  a  brass 
band,  because  the  river  has  made  them  about 

22 


The  Two  Colleges 

all  the  prosperity  they  have — has  furnished 
the  power  for  the  greatest  flour  mills  in  the 
world.  But  the  Twin  Cities  do  to  the  Mis- 
sissippi just  what  human  beings  do  to  you 
and  to  me. 

Have  you  noticed  it?  The  folks  we  help 
the  most  are  generally  the  least  grateful  in 
return. 

Don't  wait  to  be  thanked.  Hurry  on  to 
avoid  the  kick! 

Do  good  to  others  because  it  makes  you 
happy.  But  don't  wait  for  a  receipt.  You'll 
need  a  poultice  every  time  you  wait.  I  know, 
for  I've  waited. 

Do  good  from  principle.  Don't  expect  to 
be  thanked  any  more  than  the  sun  expects  to 
be  thanked  for  shining. 

How  easy  to  say,  but  O,  how  hard  to  do ! 

Minneapolis  and  St.  Paul  meet  their  ben- 
efactor with  bricks.  They  hit  him  with  to- 
mato cans.  They  throw  all  their  junk,  their 
rag-tag  and  bob-tail — every  old  thing  they 
don't  want,  down  on  the  Mississippi. 

The  Mississippi  doesn't  resign! 

The  Mississippi  doesn't  tell  a  tale  of  woe. 
He  doesn't  say,  "I'm  not  appreciated.    My 

23 


The  University  of  Hard  Knocks 

genius  isn't  understood.  I'm  not  going  to 
play.  I'm  not  going  a  step  farther.  I'm 
going  right  back  to  Lake  Itasca." 

No — he  doesn't  even  go  to  live  with  his 
father-in-law! 

He  says,  "Thank  you,  Twin  Cities,  send 
it  all  along;  every  little  helps."  If  you  go 
a  few  miles  below  Minneapolis  and  St.  Paul, 
you'll  see  a  miracle.  You'll  see  how  the  Mis- 
sissippi takes  over  all  this  discouragement, 
defilement  and  poison.  He  purifies  it,  he 
clarifies  it,  thru  some  mysterious  alchemy  of 
nature.  He  makes  it  a  part  of  himself — 
and  he  is  Greater  and  Farther  South! 


It's  by  Going  South  and  Overcoming 

Ah,  stream  from  Itasca,  I  discover  your 
secret  of  success.  I  discover  how  you  be- 
come the  Father  of  Waters.  You  keep  on 
going  south.  Civilization  conspires  to  defeat 
you.  Chicago's  drainage  canal  pollutes  you. 
The  flat,  lazy  Platte,  three  miles  wide  and 
three  inches  deep;  the  peevish,  bridge-hun- 
gry Kaw,  and  all  the  other  queer  streams 
that  unite  to  form  that  treacherous,  irrespon- 

24 


The  Two  Colleges 

sible  lower  Missouri — all  these  pour  over 
you.  The  big  muddy  Ohio  besmirches  you. 
The  red  floods,  the  blue  floods,  the  brown 
floods,  the  black  floods  all  try  to  defile  you. 
But  you  take  them  over  day  by  day,  you 
purify  them,  you  make  them  a  part  of  you, 
and  every  night  you  are  Greater  and  Far- 
ther South! 

Nothing  can  discourage  you,  defile  you, 
nor  divert  you.  They  build  a  great  dam  at 
Keokuk.  But  you  only  rise  the  higher  and 
sweep  over  it,  and  that  very  struggle  of 
overcoming  sends  the  electric  thrill  of  power 
and  light  all  up  and  down  the  valley. 

Power  comes  from  overcoming  resistance. 

One  day  the  train  stopped  in  Louisiana. 
We  had  come  to  a  river  so  great  science 
hasn't  been  able  to  put  a  bridge  across.  We 
had  to  stack  up  our  train  on  a  ferry-boat  to 
cross  the  Mississippi  River. 

Looking  down  into  that  lordly  stream, 
now  a  good  mile  wide,  hurrying  to  his  long 
home  in  the  gulf  near  at  hand,  there  came  a 
great  thrill.  I  could  shut  my  eyes  and  see 
the  little  stream  in  Minnesota  struggling 
southward. 

25 


The  University  of  Hard  Knocks 

O,  Father  of  Waters,  you  have  fought  a 
good  fight !  You  have  conquered  gloriously ! 
You  bear  on  your  bosom  the  commerce  of 
many  nations.  I  know  why.  Far  back  in 
Minnesota  you  got  in  the  right  channel,  you 
learned  the  lessons  of  the  knocks,  and  you 
never  stopped  Going  South. 

And  I  see  how  our  lives  may  become  great 
and  successful.  We  must  get  the  vision  of 
direction,  we  must  press  southward  day  by 
day.  And  the  countless  streams  of  influence 
that  pour  over  us,  the  good  and  the  bad,  need 
not  defile,  divert  nor  discourage.  We  must 
overcome  them,  take  them  over,  make  them 
a  part  of  ourselves,  and  thus  grow  stronger ! 

*     *     * 

All  the  promises  of  God  are  "To  him  that 
overcometh."  All  the  kingdoms  of  earth 
and  heaven  and  the  fullness  thereof  are  to 
the  overcomer! 

There's  not  a  crumb  promised  to  the 
loafer,  the  shirker  or  the  coward. 

Go  on  South!  Everyone  of  us  is  planned 
to  be  a  Mississippi.  But  most  of  us  stop  in 
the  Minnesota  woods,  or  in  the  Twin  Cities, 
or  at  Keokuk. 

26 


II 

How  to  Become  Great 

ONE  DAY  the  train  stopped  at  a  sta- 
tion to  take  water.  Beside  the  track 
was  a  grocery  store  with  a  row  of  bar- 
rels of  apples  in  front.  There  was  one  barrel 
full  of  big,  red,  fat  apples.  I  rushed  over 
and  got  a  sack  of  the  big,  red,  fat  apples. 
Later  on  as  the  train  was  under  way  I  looked 
in  the  sack  and  there  wasn't  a  big,  red,  fat 
apple  in  the  sack.  All  I  could  figure  out  was 
there  was  only  one  layer  of  the  big,  red,  fat 
apples  on  the  top  of  the  barrel,  and  the  gro- 
ceryman,  not  desiring  to  spoil  his  sign,  had 
reached  down  under  the  top  layer. 

Anyhow,  he  gave  me  the  worst  mess  of 
runts  and  windfalls  I  ever  saw  in  one  sack. 
The  things  I  said  about  the  grocery  business 
must  have  kept  the  recording  angel  busy ! 

Then  I  calmed  down.  Did  the  groceryman 
do  that  on  purpose?  Does  the  groceryman 
ever  put  the  big  apples  on  top  and  the  little 
ones  down  underneath?  Do  you?  Is  there 
a  groceryman  in  this  audience? 

27 


The  University  of  Hard  Knocks 

O,  man  of  sorrows !  How  you  have  been 
slandered !  It  never  occurred  to  me  until  that 
moment,  the  groceryman  doesn't  put  the  big 
ones  on  top  and  the  little  ones  underneath, 
because  he  doesn't  have  to.  It  does  itself. 
It  is  the  Shaking  of  the  Barrel. 

I  remembered  when  I  used  to  have  big 
marbles  and  little  marbles  in  my  box.  The 
big  ones  always  shook  to  the  top  and  the  lit- 
tle ones  shook  to  the  bottom.  I  always  no- 
ticed when  big  and  little  objects  shook  to- 
gether, there  was  no  mistake — the  big  shook 
up  and  the  little  shook  down.  Once  a  pike 
contractor  in  our  home  county  forgot  this. 
His  contract  called  for  the  road  to  be  made 
of  small  stones,  but  he  got  in  a  hurry  and 
put  big  stones  in  the  bottom  of  the  road,  and 
covered  them  over  with  little  ones  on  the  top. 
Before  he  could  collect  his  money,  the  big 
stones  were  sticking  their  noses  right  up  thru 
the  top.    And  he  didn't  collect  at  all. 

You  little  folks  try  that  tomorrow.  You 
put  big  marbles  and  little  marbles  together 
and  shake  them  and  see  the  big  go  up  and  the 
little  go  down. 

*     *     * 

28 


How  to  Become  Great 

I  remembered  when  I  used  to  haul  apples 
to  the  cider-mill  in  the  old  dump-bed  wagon. 
I  didn't  sort  out  the  apples;  I  just  threw 
them  in  any  old  way,  and  then  drove  four 
miles  and  a  half  over  corduroy  roads. 

Do  you  remember  about  corduroy  roads? 
O,  poetry  of  motion  I  The  wagon  only  "hit 
the  high  spots"  as  it  bumped  from  log  to  log, 
and  the  apples  were  in  the  air  most  of  the 
time. 

And  when  1  got  to  the  cider-mill,  it  seemed 
as  tho  the  big,  fat  apples  were  trying  to  get 
to  the  top  and  the  runts  were  trying  to  hold 
a  mass  meeting  in  the  bottom  of  the  wagon- 
bed. 

The  big  ones  had  the  good  luck  and  the 
runts  had  the  bad  luck.  The  same  bump 
was  both  good  luck  and  bad  luck — it  de- 
pended upon  the  size  of  the  apple.  The  same 
bump  that  sent  the  little  one  down,  sent  the 
big  one  up.  It  didn't  depend  upon  the  size 
of  the  bump,  but  upon  the  size  of  the 
bump-ee ! 

Here  were  two  apples  right  side  by  side — 
maybe  brothers,  a  big  brother  and  a  little 
runt  brother.    They  got  the  same  bump. 

29 


The  University  of  Hard  Knocks 

Little  brother  had  bad  luck  and  shook  down, 
while  big  brother  had  good  luck  and  shook 
up. 

O,  little  apple,  I'm  sorry  for  you.  But 
it's  your  own  fault.  Why  don't  you  grow 
bigger  ?  You  little  runt,  growling  about  you 
"never  had  no  chance"  and  "folks  never  used 
me  right,"  you  grow  bigger.  Get  the  lid 
off  and  begin  to  get  more  capable.  And 
pretty  soon  the  very  bumps  that  used  to  be 
bad  luck  and  push  you  down,  will  become 
good  luck  and  push  you  up. 

*     *     * 
We  Make  Our  Own  Places 

O  FELLOW  APPLES!  We  are  all 
apples  in  this  great  barrel  of  life, 
on  the  way  to  the  market-place  of 
the  future.  It's  a  corduroy  road.  Every  day 
we  shake  about  and  get  bumped.  All  life  is 
a  struggle  to  stay — a  survival  of  the  fittest. 
Every  place  is  shaking — the  postoffice,  the 
pulpits,  the  schoolrooms,  the  stores,  the 
shops,  the  offices.  Anyone  holding  a  place 
must  fill  it  or  he  cannot  stay  there.  If  he 
does  not  fill  it,  he  will  rattle. 

30 


How  to  Become  Great 

Nobody  can  stay  where  he  rattles.  He 
will  shake  down  to  a  smaller  place. 

If  he  grows  greater  than  the  place,  he  will 
shake  up  to  a  greater  place,  or  push  out 
greater  the  place  he  is  in,  which  is  the  same 
thing. 

Here  is  all  humanity  in  the  barrel — big 
apples,  little  apples,  freckled  apples,  speck- 
led apples,  green  apples — and  dried  apples ! 

We  are  not  the  victims  of  a  blind  fate,  nor 
creatures  of  chance.  We  have  in  our  own 
hands  the  power  to  decide  our  destiny,  as 
we  grow  or  refuse  to  grow. 

Some  of  us  begin  life  on  the  top  branches, 
right  in  the  sunshine  of  popular  favor,  and 
get  our  names  in  the  blue  book  at  the  start. 
Some  of  us  begin  down  in  the  shade  on  the 
bottom  branches,  and  we  don't  even  "get  in- 
vited." We  often  get  discouraged  as  we  look 
up  to  the  top  branches,  and  we  say,  *'0,  if  I 
only  had  his  chance!  If  I  were  only  up 
there,  I  might  amount  to  something.  I'm  too 
low  down." 

But  we  can  grow ! 

After  while  we  are  all  in  the  same  barrel, 
shaken  up  and  bumped  about.     There  the 

31 


The  University  of  Hard  Knocks 

people  do  not  ask  us,  "On  what  branch  of 
that  tree  did  you  grow?"  so  much  as  they 
inquire,  "How  big  are  you?" 
*     *     * 

The  One  Who  Shakes  Up 

Everywhere  you  look,  in  every  community, 
in  every  business,  you  see  the  barrel  sorting 
people  according  to  size. 

There  is  a  city  concern  where  a  number  of 
young  ladies  worked.  Some  of  them  had 
been  there  two  years.  There  came  a  raw, 
green  Dutch  girl  from  the  country.  It  was 
her  first  city  office  experience,  and  of  course 
she  got  the  bottom  job.  The  other  girls 
sneered  at  her.  "Isn't  she  the  limit?"  they 
would  say.  They  were  right.  She  made  so 
many  blunders.  But  she  didn't  make  the 
same  blunder  twice.  Every  time  she  was 
bumped  she  learned  the  lesson. 

And  she  never  "got  done."  When  she  had 
finished  the  work  she  had  been  put  at,  she 
could  always  see  some  other  work  that 
needed  to  be  done,  and  she  would  go  ahead 
and  do  it  without  being  told.  She  had  that 
rare  faculty  the  world  is  bidding  for — initia- 

32 


How  to  Become  Great 

tive.  The  other  girls  "got  done."  That  is, 
when  they  had  finished  the  work  they  had 
been  put  at,  they  would  wait — O,  so  patiently 
they  would  wait — to  be  told  what  to  do  next. 

Their  heads  were  "fat."  Sometimes  I 
think  a  "fathead"  is  really  worse  than  a 
"bonehead."  Pardon  this  expression  from 
the  diamond. 

In  three  months  time  every  other  girl  in 
that  office  was  asking  questions  of  the  little 
Dutch  girl.  She  had  learned  more  about  the 
business  in  three  months  than  the  others  had 
learned  in  two  years.  That  is,  she  had 
grown  greater  than  the  others.  The  barrel 
did  the  rest.  She  shook  above  them.  Today 
the  little  Dutch  girl  is  giving  orders  to  all 
the  rest,  for  she  is  the  superintendent  of  that 
office. 

The  other  girls  feel  hurt  about  it.  They 
will  tell  you,  "There  was  nothing  fair  about 
that — nothing  fair.  Jennie  ought  to  have 
had  that  job.  Jennie  had  been  here  two 
years  I" 

But   Jennie    hadn't   grown   as    great   as 

"Dutchie"! 

*     *     * 

33 


The  University  of  Hard  Knocks 

The  One  Who  Shakes  Down 

I  stood  in  a  paper-mill  the  other  day,  be- 
side a  long  machine  making  shiny  supercal- 
endered  paper.  I  asked  the  man  working 
there  some  questions  about  the  machine, 
which  he  answered  fairly  well.  Then  I  asked 
him  about  a  machine  in  the  next  room.  He 
said,  "I  don't  know  anything  about  it,  boss, 
I  don't  work  there." 

I  asked  him  about  another  machine,  and 
he  rephed,  "I  don't  know  anything  about  it, 
boss,  I  don't  work  there."  When  I  asked 
him  about  the  pulp  mill  in  another  building, 
he  replied,  "I  don't  know  anything  about  it, 
boss,  I  don't  work  there." 

"How  long  have  you  worked  here?" 

"About  twelve  years." 

Going  out  of  the  building,  I  asked  the 
foreman,  "Brother,  do  you  see  that  man  over 
there  at  the  supercalendered  machine?  Is 
he  a  human  being?  What's  the  matter  with 
him?" 

The  foreman's  face  clouded.  "I  hate  to 
talk  to  you  about  that  man.  He  is  one  of 
the  kindest-hearted  men  we  ever  had  in  this 
plant,  and  I  just  hate  to  tell  him  the  thing 

34 


How  to  Become  Great 

I've  got  to  tell  him.  You  see  he  doesn't  learn 
anything — doesn't  try  to  learn,  doesn't  seem 
to  care  whether  he  learns  or  not,  and  we're 
afraid  he'll  break  the  machine  he  works  at. 
We  must  let  him  go." 

For  he  had  begun  to  rattle.  Nobody  can 
stay  where  he  rattles. 

*     *     * 

Now  life  is  mainly  routine.  You  and  I 
and  everybody  must  go  on  doing  pretty  much 
the  same  things  over  and  over  and  over. 
Every  day  we  have  about  the  same  round 
of  duties.  But  if  we  go  on  doing  just  the 
same  things  in  the  same  way  over  and  over — 
just  turning  round  and  round  in  our  places 
and  not  growing  any,  pretty  soon  we'll 
shrivel  some  and  rattle. 

We  must  be  learning  and  growing  to  hold 
our  place.  The  farmer  must  be  getting  a 
new  vision  of  farming  year  by  year,  or  he 
can't  hold  his  place  as  a  farmer.  The  mer- 
chant must  be  learning  something  new  about 
merchandising.  The  mother  must  be  getting 
a  wider  vision  of  homemaking.  The  preacher 
must  be  getting  new  visions  or  he  cannot 
stand  in  his  pulpit. 

35 


The  University  of  Hard  Knocks 

So  we  must  keep  on  growing  to  stay  the 
same  size!  Evaporation  is  going  on  all  the 
time. 

When  anybody  stays  in  the  same  place 
year  after  year,  he  doesn't  rattle. 

We  never  get  done  going  south.  Children, 
when  you  go  off  to  college,  don't  get  the  idea 
you  are  going  to  a  "finishing  school,"  or 
you'll  be  finished. 

When  I  hear  anybody  say,  "You  can't  tell 
me  anything  about  it;  I  know  all  there  is  to 
know  about  it,"  I  know  he  rattles.  When  I 
hear  anybody  say,  "I  own  the  job;  they  just 
can't  get  along  without  me,"  poor  fellow! 
I  know  he  is  rattling  and  going  to  shake 
down. 

We  must  grow  or  go ! 
*     *     * 

You  Must  First  Grow  Great 

We  young  people  come  up  into  life  and 
want  great  places.  I  wouldn't  give  much 
for  a  young  person  who  doesn't  want  a  great 
place.  I  wouldn't  give  much  for  a  young 
person  who  isn't  full  of  ambition  and  hustle. 

We  think  the  way  to  get  a  great  place  is 

36 


How  to  Become  Great 

just  to  get  it.  Go  after  it  and  get  it !  If  we 
don't  have  pull  enough,  get  some  more  testi- 
monials. We  think  if  we  could  only  get  into 
a  great  place,  we'd  be  great.  But  we 
wouldn't;  we'd  be  a  great  joke!  For  we'd 
rattle. 

We  don't  become  great  by  getting  into  a 
great  place  any  more  than  a  boy  becomes  a 
man  by  putting  on  his  father's  boots.  He 
rattles  in  the  boots.  He  must  grow  greater 
feet  before  he  gets  greater  boots.  But  he 
must  get  the  feet  before  the  boots! 

No — we  become  great  before  we  get  the 
great  place.  As  we  become  great,  the  barrel 
shakes  us  up  to  the  place  we  fit.  The  place 
is  only  the  label  indicating  our  size. 

Beware  of  testimonials!  The  man  who 
has  the  most  testimonials  generally  needs 
them  the  most.    A  testimonial  is  a  crutch. 

The  little  man  tries  to  get  the  great  place 
by  getting  testimonials.  Many  a  man  writes 
a  testimonial  to  get  rid  of  somebody.  As  he 
goes  away  with  it,  the  writer  says,  "Well,  I 
hope  it  will  do  him  some  good."  It  is  dan- 
gerous, for  the  higher  you  boost  a  little  man, 
the  farther  he  is  going  to  fall.    It  may  break 

37 


The  University  of  Hard  Knocks 

his  neck,  and  writing  that  testimonial  would 
be  murder. 

No,  children,  as  you  come  up  into  life, 
don't  worry  so  much  about  places.  Try  to 
get  ready  for  places.  They'll  come  to  you 
just  as  fast  as  you  are  ready  for  them.  You 
get  the  vision  of  what  you  are  to  do.  You 
keep  working  and  listening  for  the  call, 
"Come  south!"  Then  you  go  south!  Get 
into  the  first  place  that  opens  on  the  way 
south,  no  matter  if  it  is  a  knothole.  Get  into 
the  knothole.  Then  get  too  great  for  the 
knothole.  That  doesn't  mean  get  too  big- 
feeling,  but  it  means  doing  more  than  you 
are  paid  to  do,  knowing  more  than  you  are 
paid  to  know  in  a  knothole,  and  you  simply 
cannot  stay  in  the  knothole.  The  barrel  will 
shake  you  up  into  a  bigger  knothole.  And 
on  up  just  as  fast  as  you  grow  great. 

Don't  worry  about  salary.  Salary  will 
take  care  of  itself.  Nobody  can  be  long 
overpaid,  nor  long  underpaid. 

Our  real  pay  is  gotten  out  of  our  work, 
not  out  of  our  envelope. 

How  successful  we  are  always  means  how 
happy  we  are.        ^     ^i^    ^ 

38 


How  to  Become  Great 

You  Get  It  When  You  Get  Ready 

O,  why  didn't  they  make  me  see  that  back 
in  the  days  when  "Nobody  used  me  right! 
Nobody'd  give  me  a  chance"? 

I  used  to  carry  a  dinner-pail  past  Bill  Bar- 
low's bank.  I  was  working  on  the  "section" 
for  a  dollar  fifteen  a  day,  and  I  rattled  there. 
I  didn't  earn  my  wages.  I  watched  the  clock 
and  left  my  pick  up  in  the  air  when  the 
whistle  blew.  I  would  look  up  into  the  big 
bank  and  see  the  mahogany  furniture,  and 
growl,  "I  ought  to  have  that  bank.  I'm  nat- 
urally bright.  Everybody's  trpng  to  keep 
a  brilliant  young  man  down!  If  the  rich 
wasn't  getting  richer  and  the  poor  poorer, 
I'd  be  running  that  bank." 

Did  you  ever  hear  that  line  of  conversa- 
tion? It  generally  comes  from  somebody 
who  rattles  where  he  is. 

I  do  not  mean  that  the  bank  job  was  any 
greater  than  the  handcar  job.  But  when  I 
was  not  faithful  over  a  few  things  I  would 
have  rattled  over  many. 

I  look  back  now  in  gratitude  to  realize  I 
didn*t  get  the  bank.  Suppose  I'd  had  my 
foolish  wish,  as  the  fairy  books  love  to  tell 

39 


The  University  of  Hard  Knocks 

about — love  to  tell  about  a  clodhopper  who  is 
suddenly  enchanted  up  into  a  king  or  some- 
thing. Suppose  they  had  put  me  up  into 
the  president's  chair  of  that  bank — into  a 
great  place  that  was  shaking  all  the  time, 
where  I  would  have  rattled.  I  wouldn't  have 
lasted  fifteen  minutes.  I  was  a  peanut  and 
I  would  have  rattled  right  down  to  the  pea- 
nut row. 

I  look  back  over  my  life  and  I  want  to  hold 
Thanksgiving  services  when  I  see  that  I 
didn't  get  the  things  I  wanted  at  the  time  I 
wanted  them.  They  would  have  been  coffee- 
pots! Thank  the  Lord!  we  don't  get  a  cof- 
fee-pot until  we  are  ready  to  handle  it. 

Those  dear  folks  who  love  to  talk  about 
leveling  things  and  turning  the  barrel  upside 
down,  so  as  to  give  the  little  man  a  chance, 
should  sit  down  and  have  a  quiet  think  about 
this.  The  little  man  has  the  chance — just  as 
fast  as  he  grows  greater.  To  turn  the  barrel 
upside  down  would  put  the  little  ones  all  on 
top  and  the  big  ones  down  in  the  bottom.  But 
it  wouldn't  stop  the  barrel  from  shaking! 

And  there  would  be  a  great  social  earth- 

40 


How  to  Become  Great 

quake  that  would  send  those  little  ones  down 
and  shake  the  big  ones  up,  just  as  before. 

You  can't  make  apples  of  one  size  by  act 
of  Congress. 

Quit  trying  to  fix  the  barrel.  Fix  the  peo- 
ple inside  the  barrel.  Show  them  how  to 
grow  greater. 


Today  you  and  I  have  things  we  couldn't 
have  yesterday.  We  just  wanted  them  yes- 
terday— O,  how  we  wanted  them!  But  a 
cruel  fate  wouldn't  let  us  have  them.  Today 
we  have  them — they  come  to  us  just  as  nat- 
urally, and  we  see  it  is  because  we  have  got- 
ten ready  for  them,  and  the  barrel  has  car- 
ried us  up  to  them. 

Today  you  and  I  want  things  beyond  our 
reach.  We  j  ust  want  them — O,  how  we  want 
them!  But  a  cruel  fate  won't  let  us  have 
them. 

That  cruel  fate  is  our  own  smallness.  We 
are  not  big  enough.  Grow  greater  and  we 
get  them.  We  have  today  all  we  can  stand 
today.    More  would  wreck  us. 

"No  good  thing  will  He  withhold  from 

41 


The  University  of  Hard  Knocks 

them"  that  grow  great  enough.     (Revised 
version!) 

*     *     * 

Moses  vtas  Eighty  Years  Prepaeing 

LIFE  IS  Preparation,  not  Pursuit. 
You  see  the  man  pursuing  hardest? 
By  and  by  he  will  wail,  "They  beat 
me  to  it!"  We  don't  have  to  pursue.  We 
just  have  to  prepare  for  things,  and  as  fast 
as  we  prepare  for  things,  the  things  come  to 
us  and  say,  "Here  we  are;  please  have  us." 

No  great  thing  was  ever  done,  save  by 
great  preparation. 

Moses  was  eighty  years  old  before  he  be- 
gan his  real  job.  Moses  was  eighty  years 
getting  ready  to  do  that  last  forty  years 
work.  Eighty  years  getting  ready  to  be 
Moses. 

Jesus  was  thirty  years  getting  ready  to 
do  three  years  work.  Thirty  years  getting 
ready  to  be  Jesus. 

Most  of  us  today  expect  to  get  ready  in 
about  four  easy  lessons  by  mail ! 

We  can  be  a  pumpkin  in  one  summer — 
with  the  accent  on  the  punk! 

42 


How  to  Become  Great 

If  we  can't  wait  that  long,  cheer  up,  we 
can  be  a  mushroom  in  a  day.  R-r-r-r-tl 
We're  a  mushroom — with  the  accent  on  the 
mush  I 

We  can't  be  an  oak  that  way.  When  we 
stop  growing  we  stop  living. 


That  story  of  Moses  thrills  me.  I  see 
Moses  the  little  Hebrew  babe  in  the  bul- 
rushes. I  see  Pharaoh's  daughter  come  down 
to  these  same  bulrushes.  "O-o-o-oo-oo!" 
says  Miss  Phyllis  Pharaoh,  "here  is  Moses! 
Well,  little  tootsie  wootsie,  get  into  my 
limousine !" 

I  see  them  take  little  Moses  out  of  the 
bulrushes  into  luxiu-y.  They  give  him  a 
"bawth,"  they  pour  perfumery  over  him, 
they  feed  him  Mellin's  Food,  they  dress  him 
in  a  cute  little  Lord  Fauntleroy  rig.  Well, 
well,  Moses,  you  look  just  too  cunning  for 
anything!  You  are  fixed  for  life.  Nothing 
to  do  now  but  to  loaf  around  palaces,  look  at 
the  album,  smoke  cigarets  with  your  initials 
on  them  and  wear  a  wrist  watch! 

If  Moses  had  stayed  around  the  palaces, 

43 


The  University  of  Hard  Knocks 

he  would  have  made  a  fine,  fat  mummy.  All 
the  rest  of  the  palace  people  went  to  mum- 
mies. And  Moses  would  have  been  the 
seventeenth  mummy  on  the  thirty-ninth 
shelf  to  the  right,  section  Q! 

Moses  took  off  his  tuxedo  in  time.  He 
kept  on  going  south.  He  left  the  riot  and 
the  debauchery  of  the  palace.  He  went  out 
into  the  desert  to  the  University  of  Hard 
Knocks.  It  took  eighty  years  to  get  the 
meanness  and  selfishness  and  murder 
pounded  out  of  him  so  that  he  could  lead  the 
Children  of  Israel  thru  the  Wilderness.  He 
had  to  cross  the  Red  Sea  and  go  up  Sinai, 
and  fight  his  way  year  by  year  before  he 
stood  upon  Nebo,  the  great  lawgiver  we 
revere.  *     *     * 

We  are  Just  Beginning! 

Most  of  us  die  in  the  Wilderness — tickled 
to  death  with  our  press  notices! 

We  make  a  little  first  reader  success — 
some  little  knee-pants  achievement — and  our 
friends  crowd  around  to  congratulate  us. 
They  tell  us  we  have  arrived.  We  believe 
them! 

44 


How  to  Become  Great 

We  think  we  have  arrived  at  the  Gulf  of 
Mexico,  when  we  haven't  gotten  out  of  the 
woods  of  Minnesota.  We  stop  going  south 
and  get  embalmed.  The  world  is  just  lit- 
tered up  with  mummies  who  strut  and 
squeak,  "I'm  a  success.  Do  you  not  see  I  am 
a  success?  Why  don't  you  shout  for  me? 
Here  are  my  press  notices." 

Success  is  so  hard  to  endure.  We  can 
endure  ten  defeats  better  than  one  victory. 

And  we  can  protect  ourselves  fairly  well 
from  our  enemies,  but  heaven  deliver  us 
from  our  fool  friends ! 

Generally  speaking,  the  man  who  con- 
fesses that  he  is  a  success,  isn't  a  success. 

The  man  who  is  a  success  will  tell  you  of 
the  success  he  hopes  for  tomorrow. 

Contentment  with  present  achievement  is 
sleeping  sickness.  There  are  two  kinds  of 
people  in  the  world — Educated  People  and 
Fools.  The  Fools  are  the  folks  who  have 
graduated.    And  quit! 

The  other  day  I  saw  in  a  music  store  the 
new  Edison  phonograph.  I  remembered 
when  a  boy  back  in  the  seventies  I  had  seen 

45 


The  University  of  Hard  Knocks 

the  first  phonograph — that  tinfoil  cylinder 
that  screeched,  scratched  and  stuttered.  You 
wouldn't  have  it  in  your  barn  today  to  play 
to  your  "Ford".  But  the  world  said,  "Won- 
derful! Wonderful!  Mr.  Edison  has  suc- 
ceeded!" Everybody  believed  Mr.  Edison 
had  succeeded,  save  one  man. 

His  name  was  Thomas  A.  Edison.  He 
hadn't  gotten  to  St.  Paul  in  his  going  south. 
He  went  on  succeeding.  He  went  on  work- 
ing day  and  night.  He  went  on  making 
thousands  of  experiments.  Today  when  he 
has  become  one  of  the  world's  greatest  in- 
ventors, if  we  could  bring  him  to  this  plat- 
form and  ask  him,  "Wizard  of  Menlo  Park, 
have  you  succeeded?"  I  am  sure  he  would 
say,  "My  friends,  I  am  only  just  beginning 
to  do  the  things  I  hope  yet  to  do.  Every- 
thing I  do  today  only  lifts  me  higher  to  see 
how  much  more  there  is  to  be  done  to- 
morrow." 

The  oldest  person  in  every  audience  (if 
he  be  living  and  not  vegetating)  is  readiest 
to  admit,  "I  am  just  beginning  to  learn." 

The  farther  you  travel  thru  life,  the  more 

46 


How  to  Become  Great 

you  want  to  say  with  Newton  after  he  hi  '. 
written  the  world  a  new  science,  "I  seem  to 
have  been  only  like  a  boy  playing  on  the  sea- 
shore *  *  *  whilst  the  great  ocean  of 
truth  lay  all  undiscovered  before  me  I" 

Nothing  is  ever  perfected;  it  is  just  evolv- 
ing. 

The  only  successful  man  is  the  one  who 
never  gets  done  succeeding. 

*     *     * 

We  Bury  Ourselves 

Observe  that  Moses  was  eighty  years  get- 
ting ready  for  his  job.  His  job  was  ready 
and  waiting  for  him  all  these  eighty  years. 
All  these  eighty  years  the  Children  of  Israel 
were  groaning  for  a  Moses.  But  Moses 
wasn't  great  enough. 

You  and  I  don't  have  to  hunt  for  our  job. 
It  is  ready  for  us,  waiting  for  us,  waiting 
for  us  to  get  great  enough  to  do  it.  Every- 
body has  a  great  job  waiting,  but  so  few  of 
us  keep  on  going  south  till  we  reach  it. 

If  Moses  had  "retired"  at  seventy-nine, 
we  would  never  have  heard  about  him. 

I  wish  I  could  impress  upon  you  that  all 

47 


The  University  of  Hard  Knocks 

we  have  done  up  to  today  is  just  prepara- 
tion for  today.  You  and  I  are  only  children 
in  God's  great  kindergarten,  just  learning 
our  letters  of  life.  It  isn't  hard  to  make  these 
boys  and  girls  believe  that  they  are  just  be- 
ginning. But  it  is  so  hard  to  make  us  older 
boys  and  girls  believe  this.  Our  hair  begins 
to  get  frosty  or  begins  to  wear  off  in  spots, 
and  we  begin  to  say,  "I  am  getting  old." 

And  then  we  do  get  old.  We  age  rapidly 
after  that.  Advertising  gets  results.  We 
are  exactly  as  old  as  we  think.  Age  isn't 
birthdays;  it  is  grunts. 

We  quit  work  and  fold  our  hands.  We 
say,  "I've  seen  my  best  days."  And  we  push 
forward  the  date  of  our  funeral. 

Every  time  we  say,  "My  work  is  done," 
the  undertaker  greases  his  wagon. 


Imagine  Moses  living  today  amidst  the 
din  of  the  high  school  orations  on  "The  Age 
of  the  Young  Man"  and  the  Ostler  idea  that 
you  are  going  downhill  at  fifty.  Moses  is 
eighty  years  old  when  he  first  gets  into  the 
newspapers.     He   is    "living  on   borrowed 

48 


How  to  Become  Great 

time"  when  he  puts  himself  at  the  head  of  the 
host  of  Israel. 

I  see  his  scandalized  friends  gather  around 
him.  "Moses!  Moses!  what  is  this  we  hear? 
You  going  to  lead  the  Israelites  to  the  Prom- 
ised Land?  Why,  Moses,  you  are  an  old 
man.  Why  don't  you  act  like  an  old  man? 
You  are  liable  to  drop  off  any  minute !  Here 
is  a  pair  of  slippers.  And  keep  out  of  the 
night  air.    It's  so  hard  on  old  folks." 

I  hear  Moses  say,  "No!  No!  I  am  just 
beginning.  Watch  things  happen  from  now 
on.  My  chance  has  just  come.  Children 
of  Israel,  forward,  march!" 

I  see  Moses  at  eighty  starting  for  the 
Wilderness  so  fast  Aaron  can  hardly  keep 
up. 

Moses  is  eighty-five,  and  busier  and  more 
enthusiastic  than  ever.  The  people  say, 
"Isn't  Moses  dead?"  They  reply,  "No/' 
"Well,  why  isn't  he  dead?  He  ought  to  be 
dead  this  minute." 

They  appoint  a  committee  to  bury  Moses. 
You  can't  do  anj^'thing  in  America  without  a 
committee.    The  committee  gets  out  the  invi- 

49 


The  University  of  Hard  Knocks 

tations  and  makes  all  the  arrangements  for  a 
gorgeous  funeral  next  Thursday.  They  get 
the  resolutions  of  respect — "Whereas — 
Whereas — Resolved — Resolved." 

Then  the  committee  waits  on  Moses. 
That's  the  job  of  every  committee — to 
"wait"  on  something  or  other. 

The  committee  goes  up  to  General  Moses' 
private  office.  It  is  his  busy  day.  They  have 
to  stand  in  line  and  wait  their  turn.  When 
they  get  up  to  Moses'  desk,  Moses  says, 
"Boys,  what  is  it,  but  cut  it  short,  I'm  very 
busy." 

The  committee  commences  to  weep. 
"Why,  General  Moses,  you  don't  under- 
stand. You  are  eighty-five  years  old  and 
ought  to  be  buried.  We  are  the  committee 
duly  authorized  to  give  you  gorgeous  burial. 
The  funeral  is  to  be  next  Thursday.  Kindly 
die!" 

I  see  Moses  look  over  his  appointments. 
"Next  Thursday?  Why,  boys,  every  hour  is 
taken  next  Thursday.  I  simply  can't  at- 
tend!" 

And    they    couldn't    bury    Moses.      He 

50 


How  to  Become  Great 

wouldn't  attend.  You  can't  bury  anybody 
who  is  too  busy  to  attend  his  own  funeral. 
You  can't  bury  anybody  until  he  consents. 
It  is  bad  manners! 

The  committee  is  so  mortified.  It  had 
gotten  all  the  invitations  out  for  Moses' 
funeral  and  Moses  wouldn't  attend!  Did 
you  ever  see  the  perversity  and  lack  of  ap- 
preciation of  a  man  like  Moses? 

The  committee  waited.  That's  the  job  of 
a  committee — to  wait! 

Moses  is  eighty-six  and  busier  than  ever. 
The  committee  says,  "Moses,  can  you  attend 
next  Thursday?"  And  Moses  says,  "No, 
boys,  I'm  so  busy  I  haven't  time  even  to 
think  about  getting  sick.  You'll  have  to 
wait." 

The  committee  waits.  Moses  is  ninety, 
and  rushed  harder  than  ever.  He  is  doing 
ten  men's  work  and  his  friends  all  say  he  is 
killing  himself.  But  he  makes  the  committee 
wait. 

Moses  is  ninety-five.  Moses  is  a  hundred. 
And  the  committee  dies! 

Moses  goes  right  on  shouting,  "Onward!" 

51 


The  University  of  Hard  Knocks 

"Speak  to  the  children  of  Israel  that  they  go 
forward."  He  is  a  hundred  and  ten.  He  is 
a  hundred  and  twenty.  Even  then  I  read 
that  "His  eye  was  not  dim,  nor  his  natural 
force  abated."  He  hadn't  time  to  stop  and 
abate  them. 

And  God  had  to  bury  him.    The  commit- 
tee was  dead ! 

O,  friends,  this  isn't  irreverence.  It  is  joy- 
ful reverence.  It  is  the  message  to  you  and 
me:  Get  so  busy  and  enthused  in  our  work, 
see  the  greater  things  yet  to  be  done,  and 
we'll  fool  the  "committee",  and  God  will  have 
to  bury  us,  too.  Then  the  resolutions  of 
respect  will  come  true — "Whereas,  it  has 
pleased  an  Allwise  Providence  to  remove 
us,"  and  we'll  quit  committing  suicide  and 
charging  it  up  to  Providence. 
*  *  * 
The  Secret  of  Greatness 

DON'T  MAKE  the  world's  mistake  of 
thinking  that  the  top  of  the  barrel 
always  means  getting  to  the  top  in 
worldly    honors.      Don't    think    becoming 
greatest  means  getting  the  greatest  pile  of 

52 


How  to  Become  Great 

material  things.  Don't  think  only  a  few  can 
become  greatest.  It  is  everybody's  privi- 
lege— no,  everybody's  duty — to  become 
greatest. 

I  turn  back  to  the  book  I  used  to  sneer  at 
— the  book  that  the  worldly-wise  builders 
have  always  rejected,  but  it  must  become  the 
head-stone  of  the  corner  in  every  abiding 
structure.  Here  I  find  the  answer  to  every 
question. 

Jesus  had  a  couple  of  disciples — those 
Zebedee  boys.  They  wanted  to  be  great. 
James  wanted  to  be  secretary  of  state,  and 
John  wanted  to  be  postmaster  general,  or 
something  like  that.  They  got  very  busy 
pursuing  greatness,  but  they  did  not  prepare 
for  greatness.  They  got  their  mother  out 
electioneering  for  them. 

They  came  to  the  Master.  "O,  Master, 
we  want  the  great  jobs  in  your  coming  king- 
dom. We  want  to  sit  on  either  side  of  you 
on  your  throne.  See!  we  have  the  home 
endorsement!" 

Then  the  Master  said,  "O,  boys,  you  rat- 
tle!" That  is  the  Revised  Version.  Accord- 
ing to  King  James  he  said,  "Can  you  drink 

53 


The  University  of  Hard  Knocks 

of  the  cup  that  I  drink  of?  and  be  baptized 
with  the  baptism  that  I  am  baptized  with?" 
That  is  saying  the  same  thing.  They  hadn't 
gotten  ready  for  such  greatness. 

And  then  he  said  a  wonderful  thing: 
"Whosoever  will  be  great  among  you,  shall 
be  your  minister:  and  whosoever  of  you  will 
be  the  chiefest,  shall  be  servant  of  all.'* 

Do  you  believe  that? 

Whether  you  are  really  living  and  happy 
and  successful,  and  strong  and  great  and 
educated,  depends  upon  whether  you  accept 
or  reject  that  statement  of  the  Wisest  Man. 

These  two  thousand  years  the  world  has 
mainly  rejected  it.  The  world  goes  franti- 
cally on  trying  to  be  great  by  being  greatly 
served.  The  world  tries  to  get  a  great  sal- 
ary, and  get  great  power  and  a  retinue  of 
servants.  Then  after  the  world  gets  it  all, 
it  cries  out  in  bitter  disappointment,  "All  is 
vanity!" 

Greatness  is  not  in  Getting,  but  in  Giving. 

Greatness  merely  means  the  ability  to 
carry  great  loads  and  to  bear  great  burdens. 
Greatness  means  giving  great  service. 
*     *     * 

54 


How  to  Become  Great 

How  Aix  Become  Greatest 

When  the  widow  came  casting  her  two 
mites  into  the  treasury,  the  Master  said  as 
he  pointed  to  the  rich  men  who  had  cast  gifts 
into  the  same  treasury,  "This  poor  widow 
hath  cast  in  more  than  they  all.  For  all  these 
have  of  their  abundance  cast  in  unto  the 
offerings  of  God :  but  she  of  her  penury  hath 
cast  in  all  the  living  that  she  had." 

Here  is  the  statement  that  when  we  have 
given  all  we  have,  nobody  can  give  more. 

Every  one  of  us  has  a  coin  of  talent — 
rich  gifts,  perhaps,  but  at  least  some  little 
mite  of  a  talent.  Maj^'be  just  a  talent  for 
peeling  potatoes,  or  driving  nails,  or  ruling 
a  nation.  It  matters  not  what  our  job,  just 
so  it  be  our  work — the  thing  we  can  do. 

When  we  have  developed  our  talent  to 
the  highest  possible  efficiency — when  we  do 
with  all  our  might  what  our  hands  find  to 
do — when  we  are  giving  the  greatest  possible 
service  out  of  our  lives.  We  have  become 
Greatest,  by  the  divine  definition. 

There  is  no  greater  success,  nor  greater 
happiness,  nor  greater  eminence,  than  just 
to  be  permitted  (not  compelled)  to  serve  at 

55 


The  University  of  Hard  Knocks 

the  work  we  are  best  fitted  to  do. 

That  is  the  top  of  the  barrel ! 

Quit  fretting  and  worrying  about  the 
things  you  cannot  get  to  do.  Do  the  things 
with  your  might  that  you  can  get  to  do.  Rul- 
ing or  serving,  it  is  all  one. 

I  am  learning  to  take  off  my  hat  to  any- 
body who  can  do  anything  greatly.  I  don't 
know  who  fitted  the  boards  in  this  floor,  nor 
do  I  know  all  the  great  people  who  may  come 
and  stand  upon  this  floor.  But  I  do  know 
that  the  one  who  made  the  floor  is  just  as 
great  as  anybody  in  the  world  who  can  come 
and  stand  upon  it — if  Each  be  doing  his 
work  with  the  same  Zeal  and  Faithfulness 
and  Capability. 

You  thought  when  I  was  talking  about  the 
barrel  shaking  and  the  big  ones  going  to  the 
top,  that  I  was  sneering  at  the  little  man! 
Don't  you  see  the  only  little  man  in  the 
world  is  the  man  who  won't  serve? 

Don't  you  see  that  all  the  promises  in 
God's  Word  are  for  "him  who  overcometh?" 
Not  one  crumb  for  the  loafer,  the  shirker, 
the  selfish  one. 

The  world  says  some  of  us  have  golden 

56 


How  to  Become  Great 

gifts,  some  silver  gifts,  but  most  of  us  have 
copper  gifts.  Yet  when  we  have  given  all 
we  have,  there  is  a  divine  alchemy  that  trans- 
mutes every  gift  into  gold.  Everything  be- 
comes gold  when  given  in  a  golden  manner. 
Every  work  is  drudgery  when  done  selfishly. 
Every  work  becomes  great  and  glorious 
when  we  put  into  it  a  great  and  glorious  life. 


Happiness  the  Pay  for  Service 

Have  you  ever  been  unhappy  ?  I  have.  I 
have  been  so  unhappy  I  wanted  to  die.  I 
have  been  so  unhappy  I  wanted  to  kill  my- 
self. I  think  I  would  have  killed  myself  a 
great  many  times,  but  I  was  too  big  a  cow- 
ard! My  life  was  such  a  failure.  Nobody 
wanted  me.  The  world  seemed  to  want 
everybody  else,  but  the  world  wouldn't  have 
me. 

Now  I  walk  thru  the  same  streets  singing 
where  once  I  went  swearing.  I  marvel  today 
how  well  the  world  uses  me. 

I  had  to  get  many,  many  bumps  before  I 
could  see  that  I  was  trying  to  become  great 

57 


The  University  of  Hard  Knocks 

backwards.  I  was  trying  to  get  things  self- 
ishly and  beat  everybody  to  them.  All  I  got 
was  bumps  and  coffee-pots.  I  never  knew 
one  moment  of  real  happiness  until  I  turned 
around  and  tried  to  give  some  service  out  of 
my  life. 

Grow  greater  and  your  troubles  grow 
smaller! 

Are  you  unhappy  in  your  work?  Then 
you  are  working  selfishly.  And  you'll  have 
to  get  your  bumps  and  coffee-pots  to  teach 
you  you  are  going  backwards. 

You'll  have  to  learn  that  greatness  is  not 
Getting  but  Giving. 

You'll  have  to  learn  that  the  Service  of 
God  is  the  Service  of  Man. 
*     *     * 

Only  One  Business 

Then  hear  the  conclusion  of  the  whole  mat- 
ter :  There  is  only  one  business  in  the  world 
— "My  Father's  Business,"  as  the  child  Jesus 
said  in  the  temple.  That  is  the  Business  of 
Being  Happy.  The  business  of  making  the 
kingdom  of  heaven  appear  on  earth.  The 
business   of   answering   our   daily   prayer, 

58 


How  to  Become  Great 

"Thy  kingdom  come  on  earth  as  it  is  in 
heaven." 

The  pay  for  this  business  is  not  money 
but  Happiness.  We  get  it  as  we  make  oth- 
ers happy  by  lovingly  serving  them. 

Keeping  a  grocery,  teaching  school,  run- 
ning a  home,  a  bank,  a  farm  or  a  factory — 
it's  all  one  business  of  Service,  and  we  are 
doing  the  part  our  talents  determine. 

He  that  saveth  his  life  shall  lose  it.  But 
he  that  loseth  his  life  in  service  shall  find  it 
grown  great  and  glorious  and  happy. 

If  you  want  to  be  great,  don't  go  to  Chi- 
cago or  New  York  or  chasing  around  the 
world  to  find  it.  Go  back  to  your  home — 
right  back  into  your  kitchen,  or  into  your 
shop  or  your  ofiSce  and  simply  lose  yourself 
in  the  service  of  others.  Make  your  old 
work  luminous  with  a  new  devotion.  Pres- 
ently you  will  find  yourself  upon  a  new 
throne  of  power;  you  will  find  the  people 
rising  up  to  call  you  blessed,  and  you  will 
find  that  peace  that  passeth  understanding. 

*     *     * 
We  get  all  the  Good  things  of  Life  in  the 

59 


The  University  of  Hard  Knocks 

School  of  Service.  Here  we  get  Wisdom, 
Understanding,  Happiness,  Manhood, 
Womanhood,  Greatness. 

Getting  these  is  getting  an  Education. 
All  the  rest  is  scaffolding. 

*  *     * 

Finding  the  Great  People 

If  I  were  making  a  roster  of  the  great 
people  in  this  community,  I  would  not  go 
first  to  the  show  places  nor  to  the  blue  book. 
I  would  go  to  the  firing-line,  and  where  the 
burdens  are  heaviest. 

I  had  to  go  to  the  shaft  of  a  coal-mine  in 
a  little  Illinois  town  the  other  day.  The 
bureau  had  sent  me  there  to  lecture.  I  won- 
dered what  the  grimy-faced  man  who  came 
from  the  shaft  wearing  a  miner's  lamp  in  his 
cap,  could  possibly  have  to  do  with  the  lyceum 
course.  But  I  learned  he  had  sold  all  the 
tickets.  That  man  is  the  superintendent  of 
the  one  Sunday  school  in  the  town.  That 
man  is  the  storm-center  of  every  altruistic 
effort  in  the  town — the  greatest  man  there, 
because  the  most  serviceable,  tho  he  works 
every  day  full  time  with  his  pick. 

*  *     * 

60 


How  to  Become  Great 

Chicago  has  a  great  man  who  preaches 
on  Sundays  to  thousands.  He  writes  books 
and  runs  a  college.  He  is  at  the  head  of  so 
many  uplift  movements  that  his  name  gets 
into  the  papers  about  every  day,  and  you 
read  it  in  almost  every  committee  doing  good 
things  in  Chicago. 

He  broke  away  from  Chicago  last  summer 
to  have  a  vacation  at  the  chautauquas.  Many 
people  think  that  a  vacation  means  going  off 
somewhere  and  stretching  under  a  tree  or 
jumping  into  some  sort  of  oblivion.  But  this 
Chicago  great  man  went  from  one  chautau- 
qua  town  to  another,  and  took  his  vacation 
going  up  and  down  the  streets.  He  dug  into 
the  local  history  of  each  place,  and  before 
dinner  knew  more  about  the  place  than  most 
of  the  natives.  "There's  a  sermon  for  me," 
he  would  exclaim  every  half-hour.  He  went 
to  see  people  who  were  doing  things.  In 
every  town  he  would  discover  somebody  of 
unusual  attainment,  and  he  would  visit  him. 
He  made  every  town  an  unusual  town.  He 
turned  the  humdrum  travel  map  into  a  won- 
derland. He  scolded  lazy  towns  and  praised 
enterprising  towns.    He  stopped  young  fel- 

61 


The  University  of  Hard  Knocks 

lows  on  the  street.  "What  are  you  going  to 
do  in  Hfe?"  Perhaps  the  young  man  would 
say  he  had  no  chance.  "You  come  to  Chi- 
cago, and  I'll  give  you  a  chance." 

So  this  Chicago  man  was  busy  every  day, 
working  overtime  on  his  vacation.  He  was 
busy  about  other  people's  business.  He  did 
not  once  ask  the  price  of  land,  or  where 
there  was  a  good  investment  for  himself,  but 
every  day  he  was  trying  to  make  an  invest- 
ment in  somebody  else. 

Ever  so  many  of  his  friends  worried  about 
him.  They  would  say,  "Why  doesn't  he  take 
care  of  himself?  He  just  wears  himself  out 
for  other  people  until  he  hasn't  strength 
enough  left  to  lecture  and  do  his  own  work." 
Sometimes  they  were  right. 


But  he  that  saveth  his  life  shall  lose  it,  and 
he  that  loseth  his  life  in  service  finds  it  re- 
turning to  him  great  and  glorious.  This 
man's  preaching  did  not  make  him  great. 
His  college  did  not  make  him  great.  His 
books  did  not  make  him  great.    His  life  of 

62 


How  to  Become  Great 

service  makes  him  great — makes  his  preach- 
ing, his  college,  his  books  great. 

This  Chicago  man  gives  his  whole  energy 
into  service,  and  it  becomes  the  fuel  that 
makes  the  steam  to  accomphsh  all  the  won- 
derful things  he  does.  Let  him  stop  and 
"take  care  of  himself,"  and  his  career  would 
stop.  If  he  had  begun  hfe  by  "taking  care 
of  himself,"  and  "looking  out  for  number 
one,"  and  stipulating  every  cent  he  was  to 
get,  and  writing  it  all  down  in  advance  in  the 
contract,  most  likely  Dr.  Frank  W.  Gun- 
saulus  would  have  remained  a  struggling, 
discouraged  preacher  in  the  backwoods  of 
Morrow  county,  Ohio. 


Gunsaulus  often  says :  "You  are  planning 
and  saving  and  telling  yourself  that  after- 
while  you  can  give  and  do  great  things.  You 
are  wrong.  Give  it  now.  Give  your  dollar 
now  rather  than  your  thousands  afterwhile. 
You  need  to  give  it  now,  and  the  world  needs 
to  get  it  now." 


63 


Ill 

Service  Completes  Our  Education 

THERE  IS  a  factory  town  in  the  East. 
Not  a  pretty  town,  but  just  a  great, 
dirty  mill  and  a  lot  of  little  dirty 
houses  around  the  mill.  The  hands  lived  in 
the  little  dirty  houses  and  worked  six  days 
of  the  week  in  the  big,  dirty  mill.  On  Sun- 
day they  didn't  work,  because  this  mill  didn't 
run  on  Sunday.  They  went  to  the  factory 
church.  After  preaching  there  would  be 
"class-meeting,"  and  about  halfway  thru  the 
preacher  would  say,  "We'll  now  change  the 
order  of  the  services."  That  meant  get  up 
and  speak,  if  you  had  "religion."  Always 
there  was  a  little  old,  dried-up  man  on  the 
front  seat  who  would  get  up  first. 

Perhaps  you  would  have  laughed  if  you 
had  never  seen  him  before.  He  was  dried-up 
and  shriveled;  one  shoulder  higher  than  the 
other  and  his  head  upside  down — the  smooth 
end  of  his  head  was  on  top. 

This  little  old  man  would  pop  up  first  and 
say,  "Brethern  and  sistern,  I  hain't  got  no 

C4 


Service  Completes  Our  Education 

book  rarnin'  like  the  rest  of  you."  He  al- 
ways said  that.  Every  Sunday  he  would 
break  the  news  to  the  congregation  that  he 
had  no  "book  I'arnin'  like  the  rest  of  you." 
Then  he  would  tell  them  things,  wonderful 
things. 

He  was  the  man  who  owned  the  mill.  He 
had  made  it  with  his  own  hands  out  of  noth- 
ing. The  "brethern  and  sistern"  all  worked 
for  him  six  days  a  week.  He  had  never  had 
school  advantages  and  he  had  an  idolatry  for 
a  book. 

*     *     * 

GussiE  AND  Bill  Whackem 

He  had  a  little  pink  son,  whose  name  was 
"F.  Gustavus  Adolphus."  He  often  said, 
"I'm  going  to  give  that  boy  all  the  educa- 
tion my  money  can  buy." 

Thought  he  could  buy  an  education — a 
thing  you  earn  in  service!  The  old  man 
thought  he  could  buy  an  education  and  give 
it  to  Gussie  C.  O.  D. 

The  old  man  began  to  polish  and  sand- 
paper Gussie  from  the  moment  he  could  sit 
up  in  the  cradle  and  notice  things.    He  sent 

65 


The  University  of  Hard  Knocks 

him  to  the  astrologer,  the  phrenologer  and  all 
the  other  "ologers"  they  had  around  there, 
and  got  him  "ologized."  When  Gussie  was 
old  enough  to  export,  he  sent  him  to  one  of 
the  greatest  universities  in  America.  The 
fault  wasn't  with  the  university,  nor  with 
Gussie,  who  was  bright  and  lovable.  The 
fault  was  with  the  old  father.  In  the  blind- 
ness of  his  love  he  robbed  his  boy  of  his  birth- 
right. 

What  is  every  child's  birthright? 

The  opportunity  of  becoming  great. 

How  do  we  become  great? 

The  Master  told  how — by  Service. 

Gussie  had  no  chance  to  serve.  Every- 
thing was  bought  and  handed  to  him  on  a 
silver  platter.  Gussie  went  thru  that  great 
university  just  as  a  steer  from  the  plains  of 
Texas  goes  thru  Mr.  Armour's  Institute  of 
Pack-nology  in  Chicago.  You  remember  that 
in  Packingtown,  when  the  steer  matricu- 
lates— when  he  gets  the  grand  bump,  said 
steer  doesn't  have  to  do  another  thing  after 
that.  His  education  is  all  arranged  for  in 
advance  and  he  merely  rides  thru  and  re- 
ceives it.    There  is  a  row  of  professors  with 

66 


Service  Completes  Our  Education 

their  sleeves  rolled  up  who  give  him  the  de- 
grees. 

So  as  Mr.  T.  Steer  of  Panhandle  goes  rid- 
ing thru  on  that  trolley  from  the  A-B-C  of 
Packingtown  to  his  eternal  cold  storage,  each 
professor  hits  him  a  dab.  He  rides  along 
from  department  to  department  until  finally 
he  is  canned. 

They  canned  Gussie. 

Gussie  had  a  man  hired  to  study  for  him. 
He  rode  from  department  to  department. 
They  did  their  level  best  from  the  outside — 
upholstered  him,  enameled  him,  manicured 
him,  sugar-cured  him,  embalmed  him.  Gus- 
sie was  done  and  the  paint  dry. 

He  was  a  thing  of  beauty! 


Mill  Closes  Down  Three  Times 

Gussie  came  back  home  with  his  education 
in  the  baggage-car.  The  mill  shut  down  on 
a  week  day,  the  first  time  in  its  history.  The 
hands  all  marched  down  to  the  train,  and 
when  the  yoimg  lord  alighted,  the  factory 
band  played,  "See!  the  Conquering  Hero 
Comes!" 

67 


The  University  of  Hard  Knocks 

A  few  years  later  the  mill  again  shut  do^vn 
on  a  week  day.  They  had  crape  on  the  office 
door.  Men  and  women  stood  on  the  streets 
weeping.  The  little  old  father  to  the  com- 
munity had  been  translated.  When  they 
opened  the  mill  after  that,  F.  Gustavus 
Adolphus,  who  had  inherited  the  plant,  sat 
in  the  office  where  the  old  man  had  sat  so 
long. 

He  sat  in  a  great  place,  made  by  a  great 
life  of  service.  It  was  shaking  and  Gussie 
rattled,  for  he  was  not  great. 

You  can't  stay  where  you  rattle — not  even 
if  you  own  the  place.  In  two  years  and  seven 
months  the  mill  was  a  wreck,  under  the  boy 
with  all  the  advantages  the  old  man  hadn't 
had. 

The  mill  was  shut  down  the  third  time  on 
a  week  day.  It  looked  like  it  wouldn't  open 
again,  for  there  wasn't  much  left  to  open. 
But  it  did  open,  and  with  a  new  kind  of  a 
boss. 

If  I  were  to  give  that  new  boss  a  descrip- 
tive name,  I  certainly  would  call  him  Bill 
Whackem.  He  was  an  orphan.  He  hadn't 
any  chance.    He  had  a  new  black  eye  almost 

68 


Service  Completes  Our  Education 

every  day.  But  he  just  seemed  to  fatten  on 
bumps.  Every  time  Bill  got  a  bump  he 
would  swell  up.  Anybody  who  swells  up — 
in  efficiency,  goes  up.  The  barrel  shakes  him 
up. 

Bill  Whackem  became  the  most  useful  and 
serviceable  man  in  the  community.  People 
forgot  all  about  Bill's  lowly  origin.  They  got 
to  looking  to  Bill  to  start  and  run  things. 
By  the  divine  definition,  Bill  went  to  the 
top.  So  when  the  courts  were  looking  for 
somebody  to  handle  the  wreck  of  the  mill, 
it  wasn't  any  accident  that  led  them  to  ap- 
point Hon.  William  Whackem  receiver 
for  it. 

It  was  Bill  who  put  the  wreckage  together, 
made  the  wheels  go  round  and  put  that  hun- 
gry town  back  to  work. 

*     *     * 
Hakd  Kxocks  Graduates 

This  does  not  argue  against  the  book  or 
the  college.  I  have  not  come  to  attack  books 
and  colleges,  but  to  defend  them.  Books  and 
colleges  suffer  at  the  hands  of  their  friends. 
They  say  to  the  book  and  college,  "Give  us 

69 


The  University  of  Hard  Knocks 

an  education."  They  are  just  as  thoughtless 
as  the  unthinking  ones  who  say,  "The  college 
made  a  fool  out  of  Gussie." 

You  can't  get  an  education  from  a  book 
or  a  college.  You  can  only  get  the  tools, 
perhaps  the  best  tools  in  the  world.  After 
you  get  them  you  must  go  out  into  the  School 
of  Service  and  achieve  your  education. 

In  every  community  there  are  Hard 
Knocks  graduates — people  who  have  made 
a  success  of  life  without  books.  They 
achieved  it  with  some  poor,  homemade  tools. 
Every  time  they  try  to  hit  the  big  lick  they 
feel  the  lack  of  the  early  training  and  the 
more  efficient  equipment.  That  is  why  they 
say  to  young  people,  "All  my  life  I  have 
been  handicapped  from  lack  of  proper  prep- 
aration. Don't  make  my  mistake — go  to 
school." 

They  are  like  the  man  here  and  there  who 
is  an  electrical  genius  and  you  see  him  with 
crude  apparatus  doing  really  remarkable 
things.  But  how  much  more  that  same 
genius  would  accomplish  with  a  full  West- 
inghouse  equipment. 


70 


Service  Completes  Our  Education 
The  Tragedy  of  America 

THE  STORY  of  Gussie  and  BiU 
Whackem  is  being  written  in  every 
community  in  tears,  failure  and  heart- 
ache. It  is  the  Tragedy  of  American  Civili- 
zation. In  every  community  there  are  fath- 
ers and  mothers  saying,  "We  haven't  had 
much  chance  in  our  lives.  But  please  God, 
our  children  are  going  to  have  every  chance 
we  can  give  them." 

So  they  toil  and  save;  they  get  great 
farms,  fine  homes,  big  bank  accounts.  Not 
for  themselves,  but  for  their  children.  Thisr 
is  right.  Give  the  children  all  you  can,  if 
you  want  to  do  it.  Make  them  the  greatest 
place  you  possibly  can  make. 

But  remember  the  barrel  shakes. 

Remember  every  place  is  shaking. 

If  you  make  a  great  place  for  your  child, 
you  must  see  to  it  that  the  child  becomes 
just  as  great  as  the  place. 

Else  the  child  will  rattle,  will  get  its 
bumps,  will  possibly  make  wreck  of  it  all. 

Then  remember,  the  child  will  get  the 
blame  for  making  the  wreck,  when  the  child 

71 


The  University  of  Hard  Knocks 

is  the  helpless  victim..  Gussie  was  blamed  for 
wrecking  his  father's  mill. 

If  you  make  a  great  place  for  your  child 
and  do  not  see  to  it  that  the  child  becomes  as 
great  as  the  place  it  is  to  occupy,  you  have 
cruelly  robbed  your  child  of  its  birthright. 

And  seven  out  of  ten  parents  all  over  this 
land  are  doing  it! 

A  man  heard  me  telling  the  story  of  Gus- 
sie and  Bill  Whackem  and  he  went  out  of 
my  audience  very  indignant.  He  said  he 
was  very  glad  his  boy  wasn't  there  to  hear 
it.  He  wouldn't  for  the  world  have  his  boy 
hear  such  stuff.  But  that  good,  deluded 
father  now  has  his  head  bowed  in  shame  over 
the  career  of  his  spoiled  son. 

Poor  Harry  Thaw!  Front-paged  in  the 
newspapers,  gibbeted  in  the  pulpits  these 
years  as  the  shocking  example  of  youthful 
depravity.  He  never  had  a  fighting-chance 
to  become  a  man.  Perhaps  there  never  was 
a  child  more  cruelly  and  deliberately  robbed 
of  his  birthright  than  this  same  denatured 
Harry  Thaw.  Yet  in  the  annals  of  the  Key- 
stone State  there  are  few  such  great  business 
generals  as  the  father  of  Harry  Thaw.    He 

72 


Service  Completes  Our  Education 

could  build  a  great  coal-empire  and  command 
a  great  army  of  men,  but  was  strangely  blind 
to  the  fact  that  the  barrel  shakes. 

It  isn't  the  ignorant  who  make  this  mis- 
take half  so  much  as  the  educated,  the  rich 
and  the  worldly  wise. 

The  Menace  of  America  lies  not  in  the 
Swollen  Fortunes,  but  in  the  Shrunken 
Souls  who  inherit  them. 

How  long  this  nation  will  endure  will  de- 
pend upon  how  many  Gussie  boys  this  nation 
produces.  Do  you  notice  how  few  of  our 
great  men  get  their  start  with  steam  heat? 

Children,  Leabn  This  Eably 

You  boys  and  girls,  God  bless  you!  You 
have  fine  homes.  Papa  and  mama  love  you 
and  give  you  everything  you  need.  I  won- 
der if  you  get  to  thinking,  "I  don't  have  to 
turn  my  hand  over.  Papa  and  mama  will 
take  care  of  me,  and  when  they  are  gone  I'll 
inherit  everything  they  have,  so  I  am  fixed 
for  hfe." 

I'm  sorry  for  you  if  you  think  that.  You 
are  a  candidate  for  trouble.  You  are  going 
to  rattle  and  get  your  bumps. 

73 


The  University  of  Hard  Knocks 

Learn  it  now,  children:  You  cannot  get 
something  for  nothing!  Nobody  can  give 
you  anything.  They  can  "wish"  it  upon 
5^ou.  Father  and  mother  can  put  money  in 
your  pocket,  but  j^ou  do  not  own  it  until  you 
have  earned  it.  They  can  put  ideas  in  your 
mind,  but  you  do  not  own  them  until  you 
have  proven  them.  They  can  put  food  in 
your  stomach,  but  j^ou  do  not  own  it  imtil 
you  have  digested  it. 

You  only  know  what  you  have  written  in 
the  Book  of  Your  Experience — what  the 
courts  will  take  as  evidence  when  they  have 
sworn  you  in  as  witness. 

You  must  work,  you  must  struggle,  you 
must  serve,  you  must  overcome.  Not  to  get 
food.  You  can  sit  around  and  they'll  take 
you  to  the  poorhouse  and  make  you  eat! 
But  to  get  Wisdom,  Understanding,  Happi- 
ness, Manhood,  Womanhood. 

You  get  Strength  from  Struggle. 

You  get  Life  from  Overcoming. 

You  get  Happiness  from  Service. 

You  cannot  buy  a  Great  Arm.  You  earn 
it  in  Physical  Service. 

74 


Service  Completes  Our  Education 

You  cannot  buy  a  Great  Mind.  You  earn 
it  in  INIental  Service. 

You  cannot  buy  a  Great  Character.  You 
earn  it  in  Moral  Service.  You  overcome  evil 
in  your  life.  Each  battle  you  win  the  angels 
come  to  minister  to  you.  Each  victory  gives 
you  more  surely  the  scepter  of  power  won 
only  by  the  real  kings  and  queens  of  earth — 
those  who  demonstrate  that  "He  who  ruleth 
his  own  spirit  is  greater  than  he  who  taketh 
the  city." 

For  if  you  cannot  rule  your  own  spirit, 
you  cannot  hold  the  city  after  you  have 
taken  it. 


Happiness  is  in  Your  Work 

I  have  often  thought  that  the  three  great- 
est diseases  in  America  today  (191o)  are 
Vacations,  Coca  Cola  and  The  Saturday 
Evening  Post. 

I  don't  want  to  attack  these  famous  insti- 
tutions "per  se."  They  are  merely  symp- 
toms. "If  business  interferes  with  pleasure, 
cut  out  the  business."     We  simply  must  be 

75 


The  University  of  Hard  Knocks 

amused.  Where  the  crowd  is  greatest  that 
artificial,  feverish  note  is  loudest. 

We  read  ourselves  drunk  just  as  surely  as 
we  drink  ourselves  drunk.  There  are  ten 
literary  drunkards,  twenty  amusement 
drunkards  and  fifty  vacation  drunkards  to 
one  alcoholic  drunkard.  The  best-selling 
news-stand  dope  is  turning  America  into  a 
mental  frog-pond  and  an  intellectual  slum. 
We  are  in  the  business  of  vacating  ourselves 
into  a  vacancy. 

Loving  friends  used  to  warn  me  against 
"breaking  down."  They  scared  me  into 
"taking  care"  of  myself.  And  I  used  to 
rest  and  take  such  good  care  of  myself  I 
became  a  physical  wreck. 

I  saved  myself  by  getting  busier.  I 
plunged  into  work  I  love.  I  found  my  joy 
in  my  work,  not  away  from  it.  Now  I  do 
two  or  three  men's  work,  and  have  grown 
from  a  skinny,  fretful,  nervous  wreck  into  a 
hearty,  happy  man.  This  has  been  a  great 
surprise  to  the  world  and  a  great  disappoint- 
ment to  the  undertaker.  I  am  an  editor  in  the 
daytime  and  a  lecturer  at  night. 

76 


Service  Completes  Our  Education 

I  edit  all  day  and  then  take  a  vacation 
lecturing  at  night.  I  lecture  every  day — 
maybe  two  or  three  times — and  then  take  a 
vacation  at  the  edit  job.  Every  day  is  just 
jam  full  of  play  and  vacation.  The  year  is 
one  round  of  joy,  and  I  ought  to  pay  people 
for  the  privilege  of  speaking  and  writing  to 
them  instead  of  them  paying  me! 

You  see,  I  haven't  any  time  nowadays  to 
break  down.  I  haven't  any  time  to  think 
and  grunt  and  worry  about  my  body.  And 
like  Paul  I  am  happy  to  be  "absent  from  the 
body  and  present  with  the  Lord,"  and  this 
old  body  behaves  just  beautifully  and  wags 
along  like  the  tail  follows  the  dog  when  I 
forget  all  about  it.  The  grunter  lets  the  tail 
wag  the  dog! 

*     *     * 

I  have  never  known  a  case  of  "overwork". 
I  have  never  known  of  anybody  killing  him- 
self by  working.  But  I  have  known  of 
multitudes  killing  themselves  by  taking  va- 
cations. 

The  people  who  think  they  are  overwork- 

77 


The  University  of  Hard  Knocks 

ing  are  merely  overworrying.     This  is  one 
species  of  selfishnesss. 

To  worry  is  to  doubt  God. 

To  work  at  the  things  you  love,  or  for  the 
ones  you  love,  is  to  turn  work  into  play  and 
duty  into  privilege. 

*     *     * 

Don't  you  get  lonely  in  a  city?  There's  so 
few  men  and  women  there.  There's  a  jam  of 
people,  most  of  them  imitations — most  of 
them  trying  to  look  like  they  get  more  sal- 
ary. I  get  lonely  among  the  butterflies  of 
the  brightlights.  They  are  chasing  amuse- 
ment down  the  great  white  way.  They  must 
be  amused  every  moment  or  they'll  have  to 
be  alone  with  their  empty  lives.  Rattle- 
boxes  and  sugartits!  The  Prodigal  Son 
came  to  himself  at  last  and  thought  upon  his 
ways.  Then  he  arose  and  went  to  his  fath- 
er's house.  Whenever  anybody  will  stop 
chasing  amusements  long  enough  to  think 
upon  his  ways,  he  will  arise  and  go  to  his 
Father's  House  of  Wisdom.  There's  no 
hope  for  anybody  who  will  not  stop  chasing 
amusement  long  enough  to  think.    And  the 

78 


Service  Completes  Our  Education 

devil  works  day  and  night  shifts  keeping  the 
crowd  from  stopping  to  think. 


That's  why  the  crowd  isn't  furnishing  the 
strong  men  and  women. 

We  must  have  amusement  and  relaxation. 
Study  your  muscles.  First  they  contract, 
and  then  they  relax.  But  the  muscle  that 
goes  on  continually  relaxing  is  degenerating. 
And  the  individual,  the  community,  the 
nation  that  goes  on  relaxing,  without  con- 
tracting, serving,  overcoming,  struggling,  is 
degenerating. 

And  the  more  you  study  your  muscles,  the 
more  you  learn  that  when  one  muscle  is  re- 
laxing, another  is  contracting.  So  you  must 
learn  that  your  real  vacation,  amusement, 
relaxation,  is  merely  changing  over  to  work- 
ing another  set  of  muscles. 

Go  to  the  bank  president's  office;  go  to 
the  railroad  magnate's  office;  go  to  the  great 
pulpit,  to  the  college  chair — go  to  any  place 
of  great  responsibility  in  a  city  and  ask  the 
one  who  fills  that  place,  "Were  you  born  in 
this  city?" 

79 


The  University  of  Hard  Knocks 

The  reply  is  almost  a  monotony:  "I  born 
in  this  city?  No — I  was  born  in  Posey ville, 
Indiana,  and  I  came  to  this  city  forty  years 
ago  and  went  to  work  at  the  bottom."  He 
glows  as  he  tells  you  of  some  log-cabin  home, 
hillside  or  farmside  where  he  struggled  as  a 
boy.  Personally,  I  think  this  log-cabin  busi- 
ness has  been  overworked  for  campaign  pur- 
poses. Give  me  steam  heat  every  time — and 
push-buttons.  There's  no  virtue  in  a  log- 
cabin,  save  that  there  the  necessity  for  the 
struggle  that  brings  the  strength  is  most  in 
evidence.  There  the  young  person  gets  the 
struggle  and  service  that  make  for  strength 
and  greatness.  And  as  that  young  person 
comes  to  the  city  and  shakes  in  the  barrel 
among  the  weaklings  of  the  amusement- 
doped,  clock-watching  crowd,  he  rises  above 
them  like  an  eagle  rises  above  a  lot  of  chat- 
tering sparrows. 

Tlie  cities  do  not  make  their  own  steam. 
The  little  minority  from  the  farms  and  the 
hillsides  controls  the  majority.  The  red 
blood  of  redemption  from  the  countr}^  flows 
year  by  year  into  the  national  arteries,  else 
the  cities  would  weaken  and  drop  off  the 

80 


Service  Completes  Our  Education 

map.  If  it  weren't  for  Poseyville,  Indiana, 
Chicago  would  slide  into  the  lake.  If  it  were 
not  for  Poseyville,  New  York  would  lose 
her  leadership. 


I  believe  the  most  useful  schools  in  Amer- 
ica are  the  ones  offering  the  most  facilities  to 
young  people  to  work  their  way  thru.  Dr. 
H.  S.  Lehr  used  to  say  with  pride,  "Our 
students  come  to  school;  they  are  not  sent." 
Most  of  those  students  were  working  their 
way  thru.  And  I  do  not  believe  there  is  a 
school  in  America  that  can  show  an  alumni 
roster  of  men  and  women  of  uniformly 
greater  achievement. 

This  is  uniting  the  School  of  Books  with 
the  School  of  Service  that  completes  our  edu- 
cation. 


The  Home  Towns  of  America  are  sick. 
Some  of  them  are  dying,  some  are  dead. 

The  Lure  of  the  City  is  doing  it. 

It  must  be  fought  with  tlie  Lure  of  the 
Country.  We  must  make  the  Home  Town 
the  brightest,  most  attractive,  most  promis- 

81 


The  University  of  Hard  Knocks 

ing  place  for  every  young  person.  The  town 
that  the  young  people  leave  is  the  town  that 
the  young  people  ought  to  leave. 

America  is  to  be  great  not  in  the  greatness 
of  a  few  cities,  but  in  the  greatness  of  in- 
numerable Home  Towns. 

The  slogan  of  the  next  great  American 
Crusade  must  be,  "For  God  and  Home  and 
the  Home  Town." 


82 


IV 

The  Violin  and  the  Tuning 

ONE  DAY  a  great  manufacturer  took 
me  thru  his  factory  where  he  makes 
fiddles.  He  doesn't  make  violins;  he 
makes  fiddles. 

A  violin  is  only  a  fiddle  with  a  college  edu- 
cation. 

I  have  had  the  feeling  ever  since  that  you 
and  I  come  into  this  world  like  the  fiddle 
comes  from  the  factory.  We  have  a  body 
and  a  neck.  That's  about  all  there  is,  either 
to  us  or  to  the  fiddle.  We  are  empty.  We 
haven't  any  strings.  We  haven't  any  bow 
— or  any  beau — yet  I 

When  the  human  fiddles  are  about  six 
years  old  they  go  into  the  primary  schools 
and  up  thru  the  grammar  grades,  and  get 
the  first  string — that  little  skinny  E  string. 
The  trouble  is,  so  many  of  them  think  they 
are  an  orchestra  right  away.  They  want  to 
quit  school  and  go  fiddling  thru  life  on  one 
string ! 

We  must  show  these  little  fiddles  they 

83 


The  University  of  Hard  Knocks 

must  get  back  into  school  and  go  up  thru  all 
the  departments  and  institutions  necessary 
to  get  the  full  complement  of  strings  for  their 
life  symphonies. 

After  all  this  there  comes  the  commence- 
ment, and  the  violin  comes  forth  with  the 
E,  A,  D  and  G  strings  all  in  place.  Is  it 
educated?  Why  is  a  violin?  To  wear 
strings?  Gussie  got  that  far  and  gave  a  lot 
of  discord.    The  violin  is  to  give  music. 

So  there  is  much  yet  to  do  after  getting  the 
strings.  All  the  book  and  the  college  can  do 
is  to  give  the  strings — the  tools,  as  we  saw 
in  the  last  chapter.  After  that  the  violin 
must  go  out  into  God's  great  Tuning  School, 
the  School  of  Service,  and  have   the    pegs 

turned. 

*     *     * 

All  you  ever  know  is  what  you  learn  in  the 
School  of  Service.  All  you  ever  know  is 
what  you  have  lived — what  you  have  trans- 
lated from  the  Book  of  Theory  into  the  Book 
of  Experience.  What  you  have  put  in  tune. 
Not  what  you  have  memorized,  but  what  you 
have  vitalized. 

In  its  last  analysis,  all  you  really  know  is 

84 


The  Violin  and  the  Tuning 

what  the  courts  will  take  as  evidence  when 
you  are  sworn  in  as  witness.  Gussie  says, 
"I  have  read  in  a  book."  Bill  Whackem 
says,  "I  know  I" 

All  of  us  are  Christopher  Columbuses, 
discovering  the  same  new-old  continents  of 
Truth.  We  have  read  about  them  in  a  hazy 
way.  We  do  not  know  them  until  suddenly 
we  come  upon  them  in  our  lives,  and  then  the 
oldest,  driest  platitude  crystallizes  into  a 
flashing  jewel  of  truth  in  our  consciousness. 


O,  there's  such  a  difference  between  read- 
ing a  thing  and  knowing  a  thing.  I  used  to 
stand  in  the  row  of  blessed  little  rascals  in 
the  old  "deestrick  school"  and  read  out  of 
McGuffey's  celebrated  literature,  "If — I — 
p-p-play — with — the — fi-fi  —  i-i-i-r-r-r-e — I 
— will — g-e-e-e-t — m-y-y-y — f-f-f-f-ing-er-r- 
r-rs — bur-r-r-r-ned — period !" 

I  didn't  learn  that.  I  wish  I  had  learned 
by  reading  in  that  reader  that  if  I  play  with 
the  fire  I  will  get  my  fingers  burned.  I  had 
to  slap  my  hands  on  hot  stoves  and  coffee- 
pots, and  get  all  kinds  of  blisters,  to  learn  it. 

85 


The  University  of  Hard  Knocks 

Then  I  had  to  go  around  showing  the  bhs- 
ters,  boring  my  friends  and  taking  up  a  col- 
lection of  sympathy — "Look  at  my  bad 
luck!"   Fool! 

This  isn't  a  lecture — this  is  a  confession! 

*     *     * 

Learning  About  Something  for 
Nothing 

1WAS  thirty- four  years  learning  one  sen- 
tence— You  can't  get  something  for 
nothing!  It  took  me  so  long  because  I 
was  naturally  bright.  It  takes  that  kind 
longer  than  a  human  being.  They  are  so 
smart  you  can't  teach  them  with  a  few 
bumps — you  have  to  pulverize  them. 

That  sentence  takes  me  back  to  the  days 
when  I  was  a  "hired  man"  on  the  farm. 
You'd  hardly  believe  it — that  I  used  to  be  a 
"hired  man"  on  the  farm  at  ten  dollars  a 
month,  and  "washed,  mended  and  found." 
You  see  me  standing  on  this  platform  in  my 
graceful  and  cultured  manner,  and  you 
wouldn't  believe  that  I  had  ever  trained  an 
orphan  calf  to  drink  out  of  a  copper  kettle, 
or  that  I  had  ever  driven  a  yoke  of  oxen  and 
said  the  words  I  thought  had  to  go  with  that 

86 


The  Violin  and  the  Tuning 

job.    May  the  Lord  forgive  me^  but  I  have! 

I  went  to  my  first  county  fair.  Fellow 
sufferers,  you  remember  that  at  a  county  fair 
all  the  folks  sort  out  into  their  own  depart- 
ments. Some  people  go  to  the  fancy-work 
department,  some  go  to  the  canned  fruit  de- 
partment, some  go  to  the  swine  department 
— everybody  goes  to  his  own  department. 
And  the  suckers!  They  go  to  their  depart- 
ment.   That  is  the  "trimming  department." 

I  was  in  the  "trimming  department"  in 
five  minutes.  Nobody  told  me  where  it  was. 
I  didn't  need  to  be  told.  All  the  suckers  on 
the  grounds  were  there.  That  is  because  the 
barrel  always  shakes  all  of  one  size  to  one 
place. 

Right  at  the  entrance  of  the  local  Midway, 
I  met  a  gentleman.  I  know  he  was  a  gentle- 
man because  he  said  he  was  a  gentleman. 
He  had  a  little  light  table  that  he  could  move 
quickly.  Whenever  the  climate  became  too 
salubrious,  he  would  move  the  table  to  pas- 
tures greener. 

On  that  table  were  three  little  shells  in  a 
row.  There  was  a  little  pea  under  the  mid- 
dle shell.    I  saw  it  there !    But  the  man  was 

87 


The  University  of  Hard  Knocks 

fooled  about  it — the  gentleman  running  the 
game.  He  thought  it  was  under  the  end 
shell,  and  he  kept  watching  that  end  shell.  I 
knew  better,  for  I  was  naturally  bright.  He 
bet  me  it  was  under  the  end  shell.  Here  was 
a  great  chance  to  get  something  for  nothing. 
I  bet  all  the  money  I  had  on  that  middle  shell. 
This  wasn't  gambling — this  was  a  sure  thing. 
(It  was!)  I  hated  to  take  the  money.  It 
seemed  like  robbing  father.  The  gentleman 
had  a  family  to  keep  and  here  I  was  robbing 
him,  because  I  was  brighter  than  he. 

But  I  did  not  rob  father !  Father  cleaned 
me  out  of  every  cent  I  had  in  about  four 
seconds.  I  went  over  to  the  other  side  of  the 
grounds.  That  was  all  I  could  do  now — I 
couldn't  go  in  and  see  the  mermaid.  But  I 
didn't  learn  the  lesson  from  the  bump.  I 
said  the  thing  every  fool  says  when  he  gets 
his  bump  and  doesn't  learn:  "Next  time  I'll 
be  more  careful." 

When  anybody  says  that,  he's  due  for  a 

return  date  on  the  same  bump! 

*     *     * 

Getting  in  on  the  Ground  Floor 
I  grew  older  and  people  began  to  notice  I 


The  Violin  and  the  Tuning 

was  naturally  bright  and  therefore  good 
picking.  They  began  to  let  me  in  on  the 
ground  floor.  Did  anybody  ever  let  you  in 
on  the  ground  floor?  I  never  could  stick. 
I  always  slid  thru  somehow  and  landed  in 
the  cellar,  every  time  anybody  let  me  in  on 
the  ground  floor. 

I  began  to  invest  in  gold  mines.  And  sil- 
ver mines.  Nobody  knows — nobody  ever  will 
know,  if  I  can  help  it,  how  many  gold  and 
silver  and  precious  metal  mines  I  am  in.  I'm 
in  them  yet.  I  can't  get  out.  I  have  some- 
thing to  live  for — the  dividends!  I've  been 
so  near  to  the  dividends  I  could  smell  them! 
Only  one  more  assessment,  and  then  we'll  cut 
the  melon!  I've  heard  that  all  my  life  and 
have  never  yet  gotten  a  piece  of  the  rind ! 
*     *     * 

I  got  the  gold  cure  without  Dr.  Keeley's 
aid.  Then  I  got  interested  in  Florida,  thru 
some  kind  friends  in  Kansas  City  who  desired 
to  make  me  rich  in  the  Everglades.  I  have 
an  alligator  ranch  in  Florida,  below  the  frost 
line.  Alligators  do  better  below  the  frost 
line.    I'll  sell  it  by  the  gallon. 

Which  is  not  saying  all  Florida  is  bunk — 

89 


The  University  of  Hard  Knocks 

no  indeed,  just  the  part  the  sHck  promoter 
sells  you  for  a  song,  the  part  that  is  going  to 
double  in  value  before  the  fifteenth  of  next 
month. 

*     *     * 

Getting  "Selected"' 

I  was  thirty-four  years  old  when  the  big 
killing  came.  Fellow  sufferers,  if  you  have 
tears  to  shed,  get  your  shedder  ready! 

I  got  a  confidential  letter  from  a  frien^i  of 
our  family  I  had  never  met.  His  name  was 
Thomas  A.  Cleage,  and  he  lived  in  the  Rial  to 
Building,  St.  Louis,  Missouri.  He  wrote  me 
this  in  extreme  confidence:  "You  have  been 
selected." 

Ah!  were  you  ever  selected? 

Then  you  know  the  thrill  of  joy  that  rent 
my  manly  bosom  as  I  read  this  letter  from 
this  friend  of  our  family  who  wrote:  "You 
have  been  selected,  because  you  are  a  promi- 
nent citizen  and  have  a  large  influence  in 
your  community." 

You  see,  he  did  know  me! 

"You  are  to  receive  a  thousand  percent 
dividends."  A  thousand  percent!  Did  you 
get  that?  I  hope  you  did.  I  didn't! 

90 


The  Violin  and  the  Tuning 

I  took  a  night  train  to  St.  Louis.  I  was 
so  afraid  somebody  would  beat  me  there.  I 
sat  up  all  night  in  a  day  coach  to  save  money 
for  Tom.  But  I  needn't  to  have  hurried  so. 
Tom  would  have  waited  a  month  on  me — 
with  the  sheep-shears  ready!  "Lambie, 
lambie,  lambie !    Come  to  St.  Louis !" 

I  don't  get  any  sympathy  from  this  crowd. 
You  jeer,  you  laugh,  you  respect  not  my 
feelings.  I'm  not  going  to  tell  you  a  thing 
that  happened  in  St.  Louis.  It  is  none  of 
your  business ! 

But  I'm  so  glad  I  went  to  St.  Louis.  I 
was  naturally  bright.  So  bright  I  couldn't 
learn  back  in  the  Ohio  town,  but  had  to  go 
clear  to  St.  Louis,  Missouri,  to  Thomas  A. 
Cleage's  bucket-shop,  and  pay  Tom  eleven 
hundred  dollars.  But  I  got  the  thirty-third 
degree.  I  got  the  cure — got  the  fever  all  out 
of  my  blood. 

It  is  worth  eleven  hundred  dollars  every 
day  to  know  that  one  sentence — You  can't 
get  something  for  nothing.  Not  merely  to 
know  it,  but  to  KNOW  it.  Life  just  begins 
to  get  juicy  when  you  KNOW  it.  Oh,  the 
joy  of  going  thru  life  day  b}^  day  and  not 

91 


The  University  of  Hard  Knocks 

getting  fussed  up  over  these  chances  to  get 
something  for  nothing.  I  wouldn't  grasp  a 
fortune  now — wouldn't  touch  it  if  it  were 
right  here  on  the  platform.  Come  away, 
Ralphie,  it  doesn't  belong  to  you;  somebody 
lost  it.    It's  a  coffee-pot! 

If  anybody  now  offers  me  more  than  ten 
to  twenty  percent  dividends  I  know  he  is  no 
friend  to  our  family. 

If  he  offers  me  fifty  percent,  I  shout  for 
the  police. 

I'm  yet  on  the  suckers'  lists.  Just  the 
other  day  I  got  another  confidential  letter. 
It  started  out,  "You  have  been  se — "  Plunk! 
It  went  into  the  waste-basket. 

*  *     * 

Oh,  Absalom,  my  son,  my  son!  Learn  it 
early  in  life— the  law  of  compensation  is 
never  suspended;  you  can't  get  something 
for  nothing.  If  you  don't,  then  you'll  be 
selected  to  receive  a  thousand  percent  divi- 
dends, too.  But,  Ab,  it  always  means,  you 
have  been  selected  to  receive  this  bunch  of 
blisters  because  you  look  like  the  biggest 
sucker  on  the  local  landscape ! 

*  *     * 

92 


The  Violin  and  the  Tuning 

The  other  night  in  a  little  town  of  perhaps 
a  thousand,  a  banker  took  me  up  to  his  office 
after  the  lecture,  in  which  I  had  related  the 
above.  "The  audience  laughed  with  you  and 
thought  it  very,  very  funny,"  said  he.  "I 
wish  you  knew  how  tragically  true  is  every 
word  of  it.  I  wish  you  could  see  what  I  have 
to  see  in  this  town.  I  wish  you  could  know 
of  the  thousands  of  dollars  that  go  out  of 
this  community  every  month  into  just  such 
fool  enterprises  as  you  confessed  to.  The 
saddest  part  of  it  is  that  these  thousands 
come  from  the  pockets  of  the  people  who 
can  least  afford  to  lose." 


So  I  have  no  apology  to  offer  for  taking 
all  this  time  to  tell  how  I  have  learned  one 
sentence.  If  it  took  me  thirty-four  years  to 
learn  one  sentence,  don't  you  see  the  need 
of  an  eternity?  To  me  that  is  the  greatest 
argument  for  eternal  life — how  slowly  I 
learn. 


93 


The  University  of  Hard  Knocks 

Those  Commencement  Orations 

YET  EVERY  DAY  some  young  per- 
son says:  "You  see,  by  June  I  shall 
have  finished  my  education." 

Bless  them  all!  They  will  have  merely 
gotten  another  string  on  their  fiddle. 

After  they  "finish"  they  will  have  a  Com- 
mence-ment,  not  an  End-ment,  as  they  think. 
Just  the  commencement  of  the  next  chapter 
of  their  infinite  education.  Children,  this  is 
not  to  sneer,  but  to  cheer.  Isn't  it  glorious 
that  life  is  one  infinite  succession  of  com- 
mencements and  promotions! 

I  love  to  attend  high  school  commence- 
ments. The  stage  is  so  beautifully  deco- 
rated. There  is  a  row  of  geraniums  in  front, 
there  is  a  big  oleander  on  the  side,  and  a 
long- whiskered  rug  in  the  middle,  just  as  the 
Ladies'  Home  Journal  directs  in  the  April 
number.  The  graduates  sit  in  a  semicircle 
on  the  stage  in  their  new  patent  leather.  I 
know  how  it  hurts.  It  is  the  first  time  they 
have  worn  it. 

Then  they  make  their  orations.  Every 
time  I  hear  their  orations  I  like  them  better, 
because  every  year  I  am  getting  younger. 

94 


The  Violin  and  the  Tuning 

Damsel  Number  One  comes  forth  and  be- 
gins: 

"Beyond  the  Alps  (sweep  arms  forward 
to  the  left,  left  arm  higher)  lieth  Italy! 
(Bring  arms  down,  let  the  fingers  follow  the 
wrist.  Wouldn't  it  be  embarrassing  at  a 
commencement,  if  the  fingers  wouldn't  fol- 
low the  wrist  ?  Think  of  the  shock  to  the  au- 
dience if  the  wrist  should  sweep  downward 
and  the  fingers  should  stay  up  in  the  air!) 

Applause,  especially  from  relatives. 

Damsel  Number  Two,  who  generally 
comes  second,  now  stands  forth  at  the  same 
lead-pencil  mark  on  the  floor,  resplendent 
in  a  pink  creation  caught  up  with  something- 
or-other : 

"We  (hands  at  half-mast  and  separating) 
are  rowing  (business  of  propelling  an  aerial 
boat  with  two  fingers  of  each  hand,  head  in- 
clined).    We  are  not  drifting   (hands  slide 

downward)." 

*     *     * 

Children,  we  are  not  laughing  at  you.  We 
are  laughing  at  ourselves,  and  at  how  we 
have  learned  these  great  truths  that  you 
have  memorized,  but  not  vitalized. 

95 


The  University  of  Hard  Knocks 

You  get  the  most  beautiful  truths  from 
Emerson's  essays,  but  that  is  not  knowing 
them.  You  cannot  know  them  until  you  have 
lived  them.  It  is  a  grand  thing  to  say,  "Be- 
yond the  Alps  lieth  Italy,"  but  you  can  never 
really  say  that  until  you  have  yourselves 
struggled  over  Alps  of  difficulty  and  have 
seen  the  Italy  of  victory  beyond.  It  is  fine 
to  say,  "We  are  rowing  and  not  drifting." 
But  you  cannot  say  that  in  tune  until  you 
have  pulled  on  the  oar. 

O,  Gussie,  get  an  oar ! 

*     *     * 

My  "Maiden  Sermon" 

DID  YOU  ever  hear  a  young  preacher, 
just  captured,  just  out  of  a  "fac- 
tory"? Did  you  ever  hear  him  preach 
his  "maiden  sermon"?  I  wish  you  had 
heard  mine.  I  had  a  call.  At  least,  I  thought 
I  had  a  call.  I  might  have  been  "short-cir- 
cuited," but  the  "brethren"  waited  upon  me, 
and  told  me  I  had  been  "selected."  Maybe 
this  was  a  local  call  and  not  long  distance. 

They  gave  me  six  weeks  to  load  the  gospel 
gun  and  get  ready  for  my  "try-out." 

96 


The  Violin  and  the  Tuning 

I  certainly  loaded  it  to  the  muzzle.  But  I 
made  the  mistake  I  am  trying  to  warn  you 
against.  Instead  of  going  to  the  one  book 
where  I  could  have  gotten  a  sermon — the 
Book  of  My  Experience,  I  went  to  the  books 
in  my  father's  library.  "As  the  poet  Shake- 
speare has  so  beautifully  said,"  and  then  I 
took  a  chunk  from  Shakespeare  and  nailed 
it  on  page  five  of  my  sermon.  "List  to  the 
poet  Tennyson."  Come  here,  Lord  Alfred. 
So  I  soldered  these  chunks  from  the  books 
together  with  my  own  native  genius.  I 
worked  that  sermon  up  into  the  most  beau- 
tiful splurges  and  spasms.  I  bedecked  it 
with  metaphors  and  semaphores.  I  filled  it 
with  climaxes,  both  wet  and  dry.  I  had  the 
finest  wet  climax  on  page  fourteen,  where  I 
had  made  a  little  mark  in  the  margin  which 
meant  "cry  here."  This  was  the  spilling- 
point  of  the  wet  climax.  I  was  to  cry  on  the 
left-hand  side  of  the  page. 

Then  I  committed  it  all  to  memory,  and 
went  to  the  lady  who  taught  expression  to 
get  it  expressed.    You  must  get  it  expressed ! 

I  got  the  most  beautiful  gestures  nailed 
into  every  page.    You  know  about  gestures 

97 


The  University  of  Hard  Knocks 

— these  things  you  make  in  the  air  with  your 
hands  as  you  speak.  You  can  notice  it  on  me 
yet! 

I  am  not  sneering  at  expression.  Expres- 
sion is  a  noble  art.  But  you  must  get  some- 
thing to  express! 

Here  I  made  my  mistake.  I  got  a  lot  of 
gestures.  I  got  an  express-wagon,  and  didn't 
get  any  load  for  it.  So  it  rattled.  I  got  a 
necktie,  but  didn't  get  any  man  to  hang  it 
on.  I  got  up  before  a  mirror  for  six  weeks, 
day  by  day,  and  said  that  sermon  to  the 
looking-glass.  It  got  so  it  would  run  itself. 
I  could  have  gone  to  sleep  and  that  sermon 
wouldn't  have  hesitated. 

Then  came  the  grand  day.  The  boy  won- 
der stood  forth  before  that  large  and  admir- 
ing throng.  I  delivered  that  sermon  more 
grandly  than  ever  to  a  mirror.  Every  ges- 
ture went  off  the  bat  just  where  planned.  I 
cried  on  page  fourteen.  I  never  knew  it  was 
in  me — but  I  certainly  got  it  all  out  that  day. 

Then  I  did  another  fine  thing — I  sat  down. 
I  wish  I  had  done  that  earlier!  I  wish  now 
I  had  sat  down  before  I  got  up.  I  was  the 
last  man  out  of  the  church — and  I  hurried! 

98 


The  Violin  and  the  Tuning 

But  they  beat  me  out — all  nine  of  them. 
When  I  went  out  the  door,  the  old  sexton 
said  as  he  jiggled  the  key  in  the  door  to 
hurry  me,  "Don't  feel  bad,  bub,  I've  heerd 
worse  than  that.  You're  all  right,  bub,  but 
you  don't  know  nothing  yet." 

I  cried  all  the  way  to  town.  If  he  had 
plunged  a  dagger  into  me  he  wouldn't  have 
hurt  me  so  much.  It  has  taken  a  good  many 
years  to  learn  that  the  old  man  was  right.  I 
had  wonderful  truth  in  that  sermon.  No  ser- 
mon ever  had  greater  truth,  but  I  hadn't 
lived  it.  The  old  man  meant  that  I  didn't 
know  my  own  sermon. 

*     *     * 

So,  children,  when  you  prepare  your  com- 
mencement oration,  write  about  the  thing 
you  know  best.  If  you  know  more  about 
peeling  potatoes  than  anything  else,  you 
make  your  oration  on  "Peeling  Potatoes," 
and  the  applause  will  peal  from  every  seat. 

Out  of  every  thousand  books  published,  at 
least  nine  hundred  do  not  pay  the  cost  of  the 
first  edition.  As  you  study  the  books  that 
do  live,  you  note  that  they  are  the  books  that 
have  been  lived.    Perhaps  the  books  that  fail 

99 


The  University  of  Hard  Knoclcs 

have  even  more  of  truth  in  them  and  are 
better  written,  yet  they  lack  the  vital  im- 
pulse. They  come  out  of  the  author's  head. 
The  books  that  live  come  out  of  the  author's 
heart  and  hfe.  They  are  what  he  really 
knows.  They  come  surging  and  pulsating, 
come  from  his  own  Book  of  Experience. 

Life  only  comes  from  life,  and  we  have 
life  more  abundantly  as  our  lives  touch 
greater  lives.  The  best  part  of  your  school- 
ing is  not  from  touching  books,  but  from 
touching  the  lives  of  their  teachers. 

Here  is  the  dividing  line  between  success 
and  failure  in  education.  The  books  and 
schools  do  their  part  well  in  giving  the  tools 
and  the  strings.  But  the  failure  comes  if  we 
go  no  farther. 

We  study  agriculture  in  books.    But  that 
does  not  make  us  an  agriculturist.  We  must 
take  a  hoe  and  go  out  and  agricult! 
*     *     * 

You  Must  Live  Your  Song 
"There  was  never  a  picture  painted, 
There  was  never  a  poem  sung, 
But  the  soul  of  the  artist  fainted, 
And  the  poet's  heart  was  wrung." 

100 


The  Violin  and  the  Tuning 

So  many  young  people  think  because  they 
have  a  good  voice  and  they  have  cultivated 
it,  they  are  singers.  All  this  cultivation  and 
irritation  and  irrigation  and  gargling  of  the 
throat,  are  merely  symptoms  of  a  singer — 
merely  neckties.  Singers  look  better  in  neck- 
ties. 

They  think  the  song  comes  from  the  dia- 
phragm. But  it  doesn't;  it  comes  from  the 
heart,  chaperoned  by  the  diaphragm. 

You  can  never  sing  one  song  you  haven't 
lived. 

I  said  that  to  Jessie  the  other  day  at  the 
chautauqua.  She  has  a  beautiful  voice  and 
had  been  away  to  "Ber-leen"  to  study.  She 
sang  that  afternoon  in  the  tent,  "The  Last 
Rose  of  Summer."  She  sang  it  with  every 
note  so  well  placed,  with  the  sweetest  little 
trills  and  tendrils,  with  a  smile  just  as  her 
teacher  had  taught  her.  Jessie  exhibited  all 
the  machinery  to  sing  "The  Last  Rose  of 
Summer,"  but  she  had  no  steam.  All  she 
sang  was  the  notes.  She  might  as  well  have 
sung  "Pop  Goes  the  Weasel!" 

When  I  got  back  to  the  hotel  Jessie  was 
crying.     "Why  did  I  fail?" 

101 


The  University  of  Hard  Knocks 

"Why,  Jessie,  I  think  this  is  the  best  sing- 
ing lesson  you  have  ever  had.  You  tried  to 
sing  'The  Last  Rose  of  Summer,'  when  you 
don't  know  very  much  yet  about  the  first 
rose  of  summer.  Child,  I  hope  you'll  never 
know  the  ache  and  disappointment  and  de- 
spair you'll  have  to  know  before  you  can 
really  sing  'The  Last  Rose  of  Summer,'  for 
that  is  the  sob  of  a  broken-hearted  woman." 
O,  why  do  young  girls  always  try  to  execute 
that  impossible  song — impossible  to  them? 
And  they  always  do  "execute"  it! 

*     *     * 
Why  Carrie  Jacobs-Bond  Succeeded 

The  other  night  James  G.  MacDermid, 
Sibyl  Sammis  and  I  sat  at  a  table  in  the  Cliff 
Dwellers'  Club  in  Chicago,  listening  to  the 
fourth  member  of  the  party — a  woman  clad 
in  black,  with  a  sweet,  expressive  face 
crowned  with  silvery  hair.  She  is  a  well- 
known  song  writer,  and  her  songs  go  out  of 
Chicago  literally  by  the  carload. 

I  wanted  to  ask  her,  "How  did  you  suc- 
ceed ?  How  did  you  know  what  kind  of  songs 
the  people  wanted?" 

102 


The  Violin  and  the  Tuning 

"Isn't  it  good  to  be  here?  Isn't  it  great 
to  have  friends?  And  a  fine  home  and 
money?"  she  said.  "I  have  had  such  a  strug- 
gle in  my  hfe.  I  have  lived  on  one  meal  a 
day  and  didn't  know  where  the  next  meal 
was  coming  from.  I  had  been  left  alone  in 
the  world  without  resources.  I  had  years  of 
struggle.  Sick  and  down-and-out,  I  began 
writing  songs  in  my  little  back-room.  I 
wrote  what  was  in  my  heart.  I  wrote  of  my 
own  life  and  struggles.  My  songs  just  came 
pouring  out  of  my  life.  I  had  to  write  them 
for  relief.  And  I  am  so  happy  that  the  world 
loves  my  songs,  and  buys  them  and  asks  for 
more  of  them." 

That  woman  was  Carrie  Jacobs-Bond. 
She  wrote  "The  Perfect  Day,"  "His  Lul- 
laby," "Just  a  Wearyin'  for  You,"  and  so 
many  more  of  those  little,  simple  songs  that 
tug  at  your  heart  and  sometimes  moisten 
j'our  eyes.  I  have  looked  at  the  songs.  Why, 
anybody  could  write  such  songs — just  a  few 
words  and  a  few  simple  notes. 

But  I  know  better  since  that  night  in  the 
Cliff  Dwellers'  Club.  Books  of  theory  and 
harmony  only  teach  us  to  write  the  notes, 

103 


The  University  of  Hard  Knocks 

which  are  only  the  skeleton.  The  notes  are 
only  the  place  to  hang  a  song.  The  song 
must  come  from  the  life. 

If  Carrie  Jacobs-Bond  had  never  been 
hungry,  lonely,  discouraged,  struggling,  she 
never  would  have  known  how  to  write  one 
of  the  songs  that  have  made  her  famous. 
Her  defeat  was  her  victory. 

So  we  don't  have  to  know  what  the  world 
wants.  We  have  merely  to  produce  the  per- 
fect product  of  our  own  life,  and  the  world 
clamors  for  it.  The  greatest  art  is  merely 
the  truest  echo  of  our  living. 
*     *     * 

This  the  Lesson  of  Your  Bumps 

MY  FRIENDS,  I  do  not  argue  that 
you  and  I  must  drink  the  dregs  of 
defeat,  or  that  our  lives  must  fill 
with  sorrow  or  become  wrecks.  No — but  I 
do  insist  that  none  of  us  will  ever  know  real 
success  in  any  line  of  human  endeavor,  until 
that  success  flows  from  the  fullness  of  our 
experience  just  as  the  songs  came  pouring 
from  the  life  of  Carrie  Jacobs-Bond. 

Many  audiences  are  gathered  here.  Each 

104 


The  Violin  and  the  Tuning 

person  is  a  different  audience.  No  two  are 
alike.  Each  has  a  different  fight  to  make 
and  a  different  burden  to  carry.  Each  of  us 
has  more  trouble  than  anybody  else. 

You  older  ones,  there  are  chapters  of  posi- 
tive heroism  in  your  lives.  You  know  most 
about  The  University  of  Hard  Knocks.  You 
have  walked  the  floor  when  you  could  not 
sleep.  You  have  cried  yourselves  to  sleep. 
You  know  best  that  "beyond  the  Alps  lieth 
Italy." 

A  good  many  of  you  here  got  bumped  to- 
day, or  you  expect  to  get  bumped  tomorrow. 
Maybe  you  got  bumped  years  ago  and  the 
wound  doesn't  heal,  and  you  think  it  never 
will  heal.  You  came  here  thinking  that  per- 
haps if  you  came  you  would  forget  your 
trouble  a  little  while.  I  know  there  are  peo- 
ple in  this  audience  in  trouble  and  in  pain. 
Never  do  this  many  gather  but  what  some 
have  aching  hearts. 

If  I  were  to  go  on  talking  about  it,  pretty 
soon  I'd  see  your  eyes  glisten.  And  my  eyes 
would  leak.  For  I  am  like  you — I  have  had 
more  trouble  than  anybody  else. 

Then  you  young  folks !    You  aren't  much 

105 


The  University  of  Hard  Knocks 

interested  in  this  lecture.  You  are  polite  to 
me,  because  this  is  a  polite  neighborhood, 
but  you  don't  care  much  for  this  lecture. 
You  are  saying,  "What's  this  all  about? 
What's  that  man  talking  about?  I  haven't 
had  these  things — and  I'm  not  going  to  have 
them,  either!" 

And  maybe  some  of  you  are  naturally 
bright ! 

Children,  you  are  not  old  enough  to  feel 
the  need  of  this  kind  of  Castoria. 

But  you  will  know.  You  will  need  it.  I 
don't  ask  you  to  believe  this — only  remember 
it,  so  when  you  are  bumped  it  will  feel  like  a 
poultice.  Your  life  is  going  to  be  very  much 
like  all  other  lives.  All  lives  have  about  the 
same  elements.  You  are  going  to  weep. 
Some  of  you  are  going  to  cry  yourselves  to 
sleep.  Some  of  you  are  going  to  walk  the 
floor  when  you  can't  sleep.  You  are  going 
to  get  bumped  just  as  hard  as  papa  and 
mama  have  been  bumped.  It's  just  going 
to  be  terrible! 

Some  of  you  are  going  to  know  the  keen- 
est sorrow,  when  the  ones  or  one  you  trusted 
most,  the  ones  closest  to  you,  betray  you. 

106 


The  Violin  and  the  Tuning 

Maybe,  betray  you  with  a  kiss !  You  will  go 
thru  your  Gethsemane,  and  you'll  think 
there  isn't  going  to  come  any  morning.  You 
will  say,  "God,  let  me  die.  I  am  so  un- 
happy.   I  have  nothing  more  to  live  for." 

But  it  is  a  long  time  after  that  until  you 
are  dead. 

You  are  yet  to  discover  that  the  best  part 
of  our  lives  comes  after  we  have  been  killed 
a  few  times ! 

*     *     * 

This  the  Path  to  Heaven 

And  you  are  going  to  learn  thru  the  years 
and  the  bumps  and  the  tears,  that  all  these 
things  somehow  are  necessary  to  complete 
our  education. 

These  bumps  and  hard  knocks  do  not 
break  the  fiddle — they  only  turn  the  pegs! 

Thru  the  years  and  the  tears  these  bumps 
and  tragedies  and  Waterloos  draw  the 
Strings  of  the  Soul  tighter  and  tighter,  near- 
er and  nearer  to  God's  Great  Concert  Pitch, 
where  the  discords  fade  out  of  our  lives, 
where  the  music  divine  and  the  harmonies 
celestial  come  from  the  same  old  strings  that 

107 


The  University  of  Hard  Knocks 

had  been  sending  forth  all  that  noise  and 
discord ! 

Thus  we  know  our  education  is  being  fin- 
ished— when  the  evil  and  the  wrong  and  the 
discord  go  out  of  our  lives,  and  when  peace, 
understanding,  sympathy,  love  and  harmony 
fill  them. 

Then  and  not  till  then,  is  our  Education 
completed. 

For  Education  is  merely  the  path  to  com- 
plete Happiness — the  pathway  to  Heaven! 


108 


LooJxing  Backward 

WHAT  MEMORIES  revive  in  all  of 
us   as   I   touch  these  old   familiar 
chords.    In  my  earlier  talks  on  "The 
University  of  Hard  Knocks"  I  used  to  dis- 
cuss these  matters  at  length.    Perhaps  it  will 
not  be  amiss  to  note  a  few  of  them  here. 

You  gather  from  these  remarks  I  was  not 
born  with  a  silver  spoon  in  my  mouth,  tho 
it  is  evident  I  could  have  handled  a  pretty 
good-sized  spoon.  My  father  was  a  Metho- 
dist preacher,  and  we  had  tin  spoons.  We 
never  had  to  tie  a  red  string  around  our 
spoons  when  we  loaned  them  for  the  ladies' 
aid  society  oyster  supper.  We  always  got 
our  spoons  back! 

The  first  money  I  ever  earned,  I  got  by 
walking  several  miles  into  the  country  and 
gathering  sheaves  all  day  in  the  harvest  field. 
You  remember  those  old  reaper  days.  That 
night  I  was  so  proud  when  that  farmer  pat- 
ted me  on  the  head  and  said:  "You  are  the 
best  boy  to  work  I  ever  saw."     Then  the 

109 


The  University  of  Hard  Knocks 

cheerful  old  miser  put  a  nickel  in  my  blis- 
tered hand.  That  nickel  looked  bigger  than 
any  money  I  have  since  handled. 


The  "Last  Day  of  School" 

Yet  I  was  years  learning  it  is  much  easier 
to  make  money  than  to  learn  how  to  handle 
it,  hence  the  tale  that  follows. 

I  was  sixteen  years  old  and  a  school 
teacher.  Sweet  sixteen — I  mean,  green  six- 
teen. Cheer  up,  children,  only  green  things 
grow!  I  was  so  tall  and  awkward  then — I 
have  since  changed  so  much !  I  got  the  school 
because  I  was  several  dollars  the  lowest  bid- 
der. They  used  to  say  anybody  could  teach 
"kids." 

I  had  never  studied  pedagogy,  but  I  had 
whittled  out  three  rules  of  teaching  that  I 
thought  would  make  it  go.  My  three  rules 
of  teaching  were — 

1,  Make  'em  study. 

2,  Make  'em  recite.  That  is,  fill  'em  up 
and  then  empty  'em! 

3,  Get  your  money.  With  the  accent  on 
the  third  rule. 

110 


Looking  Backward 

I  walked  the  thirteen  miles,  six  and  a  half 
each  way,  most  of  the  time,  to  save  money. 
I  was  not  so  narrow  as  to  confine  my  teach- 
ing to  one  method.  I  was  broad  enough  to 
use  all  methods  the  same  day.  With  the 
small  fry  in  the  front  rows  I  used  a  small 
paddle  to  win  their  confidence  and  to  arouse 
their  enthusiasm  for  an  education.  But  with 
pupils  larger  and  more  muscular  than  the 
teacher,  I  used  love  and  moral  suasion. 

We  ended  the  school  with  an  "exhibition." 
Did  you  ever  attend  the  old  back  country 
"ex-hi-bition"  The  people  came  that  day 
from  all  over  the  township.  They  were  so 
glad  our  school  was  closing  they  all  turned 
out  to  make  it  a  success.  They  brought  great 
baskets  of  provender  and  we  had  a  feast.  We 
covered  the  school  desks  with  boards  and 
then  stacked  them  high  with  fried  chicken 
and  doughnuts  and  pie — forty  kinds  of  pie! 
Applebutter  pie  with  the  cross-barred  lid, 
and  dried-apple  pie  that  was  positively 
"swell"! 

Then  we  had  a  "doings."  Everybody  did 
a  stunt.  We  executed  a  lot  of  literature, 
and  "execute"  is  the  word  that  tells  what  we 
111 


The  University  of  Hard  Knocks 

did  to  literature  that  day.  I  can  shut  my 
eyes  now  and  see  that  show.  I  can  see  my 
pupils  coming  up  one  by  one  to  speak  their 
piece.  I  hardly  knew  them,  for  they  were 
dressed  up,  and  I  had  on  a  collar.  Father 
had  cut  their  hair  with  the  sheepshears. 
Mother  had  washed  them — washed  them 
clear  back  of  the  ears — and  even  into  them, 
twisting  up  the  towel  into  a  gimlet  for  that 
purpose.  They  wore  collars  that  stuck  out 
all  around  like  they  had  pushed  their  heads 
thru  a  wagon-wheel. 

I  can  see  them  coming  up  one  by  one  to 
speak  their  piece.  I  can  see  "The  Soldier  of 
the  Legion  Day  Dying  in  Algiers."  We 
had  him  die  again  that  day,  and  he  died  a 
terrible  death  as  we  executed  him.  I  can  see 
"The  Boy  Stood  on  the  Burning  Deck."  I 
can  see  Mary's  little  lamb  come  skipping 
again  over  the  stage.  I  can  see  the  tow- 
headed  patriot  again  come  forward  to  recite 
Patrick  Henry's  "Give  Me  Liberty  or  Give 
Me  Death!"  I  have  often  thought  that  if 
Patrick  Henry  had  attended  our  "ex-hi- 
bition,"  he  would  have  said,  "Give  me  death!" 

Then  came  a  breathless  hush,  as  "teacher" 

112 


Looking  Backward 

came  forth  to  say  farewell.  It  was  custom- 
ary to  cry,  but  I  thought  I  would  yell.  To- 
morrow I  would  get  my  money.  I  had  a 
speech  I  had  been  saying  over  and  over  until 
it  would  run  itself.  But  somehow  when  I 
got  up  before  that  last  day  of  school  audi- 
ence, and  opened  my  mouth,  it  was  a  great 
opening,  but  it  missed  fire.  There  I  stood 
with  my  mouth  open  and  nothing  coming  out. 
It  came  out  of  my  eyes.  Tears  rolled  down 
my  cheeks  until  I  could  hear  them  spatter 
on  my  six-dollar  suit. 

And  my  pupils  wept  as  their  dear  teacher 
said  farewell!  Parents  wept.  It  was  the 
teariest  time  you  ever  saw.  I  managed  to 
say,  "Weep  not  for  me,  dear  friends,  I  am 
going  away  from  you — but  I  shall  return  and 
teach  your  school  next  year." 

I  think  they  cried  harder  after  that ! 
*     *     * 

Due  at  "Corncutting" 

Next  day  I  drew  my  money.  I  had  it  all 
in  one  joyous  wad — $240.  I  was  going  home 
with  head  high  and  aircastles  built  even 
higher. 

113 


The  University  of  Hard  Knocks 

But  I  never  got  home  with  the  money. 
Talk  about  the  fool  and  his  money,  and  you 
get  very  personal.  On  the  road  home  I  met 
Squire  K,  and  he  borrowed  all  the  money  of 
me.  I  loaned  it  so  freely  to  him  and  no  ques- 
tions asked,  because  Squire  K  was  "such  a 
good  man,"  and  a  pillar  of  the  church.  I 
used  to  wonder  why  he  didn't  take  a  pillow 
to  church. 

Squire  K  gave  me  a  note  for  $240,  due  at 
"corncutting,"  as  we  termed  that  annual  fall- 
time  paying-up  season.  I  have  that  note  yet. 
I  have  a  faded,  yellow,  tear-spattered  note 
for  two  hundred  and  forty  dollars  due  at 
"corncutting,"  back  in  the  eighties. 

Squire  K  has  gone  from  earth — has  gone 
to  his  eternal  reward.  I  scarcely  know 
whether  to  look  up  or  down  as  I  say  that. 
He  never  left  any  address  that  I  could  find. 

Yet  I  gained.  There  is  compensation  and 
hard  knocks  education  in  all  these  bumps. 
The  school  teaching  was  worth  thousands  in 
experience,  but  I  paid  two  hundred  and  forty 
thirteen-mile-a-day  dollars  to  learn  a  little, 
simple  lesson  I  couldn't  learn  out  of  the 
books — that  a  fool  can  make  money,  but  only 

114 


Looking  Backward 

a  wise  man  can  spend  it.  And  incidentally 
I  learned  it  may  be  safer  to  do  business  with 
a  first-class  sinner  than  a  second-class  saint. 
This  isn't  a  slap  at  the  church,  but  a  slap 
at  the  worst  enemies  of  the  church,  the  foes 
of  its  own  household. 

*     *     * 

Graduating  from  the  High  School 

But  let  me  add  just  one  lesson — the  lesson 
that  every  discontented,  ungrateful  soul 
must  learn. 

We  had  a  commencement  in  the  home 
town  high  school.  A  class  of  brilliant  and 
gifted  young  men  and  women  went  forth  to 
take  charge  of  the  world.  We  were  so  glad 
the  world  had  waited  on  us  so  long,  and  we 
were  so  sure  the  world  would  be  richly  repaid 
for  waiting. 

We  were  going  to  be  presidents  and  sena- 
tors, authors  and  authoresses,  poets  and  poet- 
esses, scientists  and  scientistesses,  geniuses 
and  geniusesses,  and  things  like  that.  There 
was  just  one  boy  in  the  class  who  wasn't 
bright.  This  Jim  Lambert  person  didn't 
have  any  brilliant  career  in  view;  he  didn't 

115 


The  University  of  Hard  Knocks 

even  want  to  be  postmaster.  He  somehow 
couldn't  learn  like  the  rest  of  us,  for  he  lacked 
the  intellect.  They  "conditioned"  him  into 
the  senior  class,  and  so  we  all  looked  down 
on  him. 

As  commencement  day  approached,  the 
committee  of  the  class  appointed  for  that 
purpose  took  Jim  around  back  of  the  school- 
house  and  broke  the  news  to  him  that  they 
were  going  to  let  him  graduate  with  the  class, 
but  they  wouldn't  let  him  speak,  because  he 
couldn't  make  a  speech.  So  they  hid  Jim 
on  the  stage  back  of  the  oleander  that  com- 
mencement night. 


Shake  the  barrel ! 

The  girl  who  was  to  become  the  authoress 
became  the  helloess  in  the  home  telephone 
exchange,  and  has  become  absolutely  indis- 
pensable to  the  community.  The  girl  who 
was  to  become  the  poetess  became  the  god- 
dess at  the  general  delivery  window  and  su- 
perintendent of  the  stamp-licking  depart- 
ment of  the  home  postoffice.  The  boy  who 
was  going  to  Congress  is  raising  the  best 

116 


Looking  Backward 

corn  in  the  county,  and  his  wife  is  speaker 
of  the  house. 

Some  of  them  are  doing  very  well — espe- 
cially Jim  Lambert. 

Jim,  who  wasn't  bright,  is  the  head  of  one 
of  the  big  manufacturing  plants  of  the  South, 
with  a  lot  of  men  working  for  him.  The 
committee  that  took  him  behind  the  school- 
house  to  inform  him  he  couldn't  speak  at 
commencement,  would  now  have  to  wait  in 
line  before  a  frosted  door  marked,  "Mr. 
Lambert,  Private."  They  would  have  to 
send  up  their  cards,  and  have  the  watchdog 
who  guards  the  door  tell  them,  "Cut  it  short, 
he's  busy!"  before  they  could  interview  him 
today. 

They  hung  a  picture  of  Mr.  Lambert  in 
the  high  school  back  there  at  the  last  alumni 
meeting.  Hung  it  in  the  same  room  where 
they  hid  Jim  behind  the  oleander  when  he 
graduated,  because  he  wasn't  bright. 

Dull  boy,  you  with  your  eyes  tear-dimmed 
sometimes  because  you  can't  learn  like  the 
bright  ones  in  your  class — doesn't  the  story 
of  the  Lambert  boy  cheer  you  up  a  little? 
*     *     * 

117 


The  University  of  Hard  Knocks 

Twenty-One  Years  Afterwards! 

I  was  janitor  of  the  schoolhouse.  Some 
of  my  classmates  will  never  know  how  their 
thoughtless  jeers  womided  the  shabby  boy 
who  swept  the  floors  and  carried  in  the  coal. 
After  commencement  my  career  seemed  to 
end,  just  where  the  careers  of  the  rest  of  the 
class  seemed  to  begin.  They  were  going  off 
to  college  and  were  going  to  do  great  things. 
But  I  was  too  poor  to  go.  The  week  after 
commencement  I  went  off  to  a  printshop  in 
another  town,  rolled  up  my  sleeves  and  went 
to  work  in  the  "devil's  corner"  to  earn  my 
daily  bread. 

It  took  such  a  lot  of  bread ! 

I  was  discouraged  and  bitter  at  my  fate. 
I  had  no  chance  like  the  rest. 

Twenty-one  years  afterwards,  a  lyceum 
bureau  sent  me  back  to  that  home  town 
to  give  a  lecture.  Every  lecturer  has  a 
thrill — and  generally  a  frost — when  he  goes 
back  to  lecture  in  the  home  town.  He  be- 
comes a  boy  again,  not  a  lecturer,  for  there 
are  the  boys  he  played  with,  and  fought  with 
— down  there  in  the  front  rows,  with  their 
wives  and  their  children.    And  he  has  got- 

118 


Looking  Backward 

ten  his  lectures  out  of  this  home  town,  and 
his  horrible  examples,  and  if  he  gives  his 
lecture  he  will  stir  things  up.     His  heroes 
and  villains  are  within  striking  distance. 
*     *     * 

I  went  back  to  the  same  old  hall  to  lec- 
ture, and  stood  upon  the  same  old  boards 
where  twenty-one  years  before  I  had  stood 
to  orate,  and  had  said  in  my  impassioned  elo- 
quence, "Ladies  and  gentlemen:  Greece  is 
go-o-one,  and  Rome  is  no  mo-o-o-ore,  but 
fear  not,  for  I  will  save  you!"  or  words  to 
that  effect. 

Then  I  went  back  to  the  hotel  with  my  eyes 
swimming  and  my  heart  afire  with  gratitude. 
I  had  a  picture  of  the  class — the  one  that  had 
been  taken  twenty-one  years  before,  just  be- 
fore we  graduated.  I  hadn't  seen  the  pic- 
ture these  twenty-one  years,  for  I  didn't  have 
the  quarter. 

Hours  I  sat  with  that  picture  that  night, 
living  it  over  and  getting  a  truer  perspective 
of  life.  If  you  want  to  read  the  greatest 
chapter  of  life,  you  sit  alone  at  night  with  a 
picture  of  your  playmates  taken  twenty-one 
years  before. 

119 


The  University  of  Hard  Kriocks 

In  that  picture  were  fifty-four  young  peo- 
ple, all  going  to  do  wonderful  things.  But 
the  barrel  had  been  shaking,  and  almost 
every  one  that  I  expected  would  go  up  had 
shaken  down,  while  those  I  expected  would 
go  down,  had  gone  up.  Out  of  that  class,  one 
had  gone  to  a  pulpit,  one  had  gone  to  Con- 
gress and  one  had  gone  to  the  penitentiary. 
There  had  been  drunkards,  gamblers,  wrecks 
and  a  suicide  in  that  class.  It  seemed  as  tho 
every  note  on  the  keyboard  of  human  possi- 
bility and  failure  had  been  struck  in  that 
one  class. 

And  when  that  picture  was  taken  the  old- 
est was  not  more  than  eighteen,  yet  it  seemed 
as  tho  the  destiny  of  every  one  was  pretty 
nearly  decided.  They  were  still  going  the 
way  their  faces  were  turned  in  that  picture. 

The  boy  who  skimmed  over  his  work  in 
school  was  still  skimming  over  the  work  of 
life. 

The  boy  who  went  to  the  bottom  of  things 
in  school  was  still  going  to  the  bottom  of 
tilings  in  life.  Which  had  helped  him  to  go 
to  the  top  of  things. 

Jim  Lambert  was  still  interested  in  ma- 

120 


Looking  Backward 

chinery  as  he  was  when  he  was  so  dull  in  his 
books. 

The  boy  who  traded  knives  with  me  and 
skinned  me.  Why  was  it  he  could  always 
beat  me  in  a  trade?  Well,  he  went  on  trad- 
ing knives  and  skinning  folks.  Twenty-one 
years  afterwards  he  was  doing  time  in  the 
state  penitentiary  as  a  forger.  He  was  now 
called  a  very  bad  man,  when  twenty-one 
years  ago  as  he  did  the  same  things  on  a 
smaller  scale  they  called  him  smart  and 
bright. 

How  easy  it  is  to  see — as  you  look  back- 
ward. 

How  hard  it  is  to  see — as  you  look  for- 
ward. 

The  bookworm  boy  who  didn't  mix  with 
the  other  boys,  who  didn't  whisper,  who 
didn't  get  into  trouble,  who  always  had  his 
hair  combed  and  said,  "If  you  please,"  used 
to  hurt  me.  All  the  mothers  used  to  say  as 
they  punished  their  own  reprobate  sons, 
"Why  can't  you  be  like  Harry?  He'll  be- 
come president  of  the  United  States,  and 
you'll  go  to  jail."  That  model  Plarry  never 
had  the  gumption  to  do  anything  but  sit 

121 


The  University  of  Hard  Knocks 

around  and  be  a  model.  I  believe  it  is  Mr. 
Webster  who  defines  a  model  as  a  small  imi- 
tation of  the  real  thing.  Harry  certainly 
was  a  successful  model.  He  became  a  seedy, 
sleepy  old  relic  at  forty.  It  was  the  boys 
who  had  the  hustle  and  the  life  and  energy, 
who  occasionally  needed  licking — and  who 
got  it  good  and  plentifully — who  really 
achieved  things. 

It  might  be  added  that  Clarice,  our  society 
girl — our  real  pretty  girl  of  the  class,  who 
won  the  majolica  vase  in  the  home  paper 
beauty  coupon  contest,  went  right  on  thru 
the  years  in  the  social  spothght,  primping 
and  flirting.  At  last  she  got  on  the  rem- 
nant counter  with  no  bidders.  The  girls  of 
the  class  who  shone  in  society  mainly  as 
wall-flowers,  were  the  ones  who  became  the 
mothers  in  the  real  homes  of  the  community. 
Somehow,  the  boys  hurrahed  for  giddy  Cla- 
rice, but  picked  a  wall-flower  to  preside  over 

their  new  home! 

*     *     * 

The  Boy  I  Had  Envied! 

Frank  was  the  boy  I  had  envied  most.  He 
had  everything — had  a  fine  home,  a  loving 

122 


Looking  Backward 

father,  money,  opportunity  and  a  great  ca- 
reer awaiting  him.  Everybody  said  that 
Frank  was  the  most  popular  boy  in  the  town, 
and  he  was  brilliant  and  lovable.  People 
always  said  he  would  make  his  mark  in  the 
world  and  make  the  town  proud  of  him. 

Many  a  time  as  I  plugged  away  at  the 
printer's  case  I  longed  for  Frank's  chance. 

Twenty-one  years  afterwards  when  I  got 
off  the  train  in  the  old  town  I  asked, 
"Where's  Frank?"  Presently  we  went  out 
on  the  edge  of  the  town  to  the  cemetery  and 
stood  at  a  grave,  where  I  read  on  the  head- 
stone, "Frank." 

And  I  had  the  story  of  the  kind  of  a  trag- 
edy too  pitifully  common  these  days.  The 
story  of  the  boy  who  had  every  advantage 
and  opportunity,  but  had  everything  given 
him — had  all  of  life  made  too  easy  for  him. 
Pie  had  no  discipline  in  the  School  of  Service, 
and  he  never  entered  his  career.  He  just 
seemed  to  plunge  headlong  hellward.  He 
disappointed  every  proud  hope,  broke  his 
father's  heart,  spent  his  fortune,  shocked  a 
community,  and  finally  ended  his  wasted  life 
with  a  bullet  fired  by  his  own  hand. 
*     *     * 

123 


The  University  of  Hard  Knocks 

Pulling  on  the  Oar 

Did  you  get  the  great  lesson  from  "Ben 
Hur"? 

The  Jewish  boy  is  torn  from  his  home  in 
disgrace.  Heartbroken  he  is  haled  into  court 
and  tried  for  a  crime  he  never  committed. 
Ben  Hur  didn't  get  a  fair  trial.  Xobody 
gets  a  fair  trial  at  the  hands  of  this  world. 
That  is  why  the  great  Judge  has  said,  "Judge 
not,  for  you  have  not  the  full  evidence  in  the 
case." 

Then  they  condemn  him.  They  lead  him 
away  to  the  galleys,  they  chain  him  to  the 
bench,  chain  him  to  the  oar.  There  follow 
the  days  and  years  when  the  lash  falls  on  his 
back  as  he  pulls  on  the  oar.  Day  by  day  his 
back  bleeds,  his  heart  aches,  his  eyes  fill  with 
tears.  He  is  the  victim  of  cruel,  mocking 
fate.  He  is  getting  nowhere;  just  pulling 
on  the  oar. 

Just  as  you  and  I  cry  out.  In  a  kitchen 
or  an  office  or  wherever  we  work  we  seem 
so  often  like  slaves  just  pulling  on  the  oar. 
Life  seems  just  one  futureless  round  of 
drudgery.  The  lash  of  necessity  falls  on  our 

124 


Looking  Backward 

back,  and  our  heart  aches  and  our  eyes  fill 
up  with  tears.  O,  God,  how  long!  Each  one 
of  us  can  look  across  the  street  and  see  some- 
body who  doesn't  have  to  pull  on  the  oar. 
They  have  a  better  time  than  we  have  and 
we  envy  them. 

We  cannot  see  that  they,  too,  are  pulling 
on  the  oar.  We  can  only  see  the  oar  we  seem 
chained  to.  We  do  not  see  that  those  we 
envy  are  often  envying  us. 

But  look  at  the  chariot  race  in  Antioch. 
See  the  thousands  in  the  circus.  See  Mes- 
sala,  the  haughty  Roman,  and  see!  Ben  Hur 
from  the  galleys  in  the  other  chariot  driving 
those  Arabian  steeds  pitted  against  jNIessala. 
Down  the  course  hurl  these  twin  thunder- 
bolts. Who  will  win?  "The  man  with  the 
stronger  forearms,"  whisper  the  thousands. 

There  comes  the  crucial  moment  in  the 
race  when  Ben  Hiu'  with  those  mighty  fore- 
arms of  steel  that  he  had  been  getting  in  the 
galleys  pulling  on  the  oar — when  those  tre- 
mendous arms  are  able  to  pull  those  flying 
Arabians  into  the  inner  ring,  and  Ben  Hur 
wins  tlie  race,  because  he  had  been  pulling 
on  the  oar!    Had  Ben  Hur  never  been  ar- 

125 


The  University  of  Hard  Knocks 

rested,  and  condemned,  he  never  could  have 
won  the  race. 

Sooner  or  later  you  and  I  are  to  discover 
as  we  pull  on  the  oar,  lashed  so  often  by 
grim  necessity,  that  Providence  doesn't  make 
any  mistakes  in  its  bookkeeping.  Every  hon- 
est effort  we  make,  tho  blindly  and  despair- 
ingly, is  somehow  laid  up  for  us  as  a  bank 
account  of  strength,  at  compound  interest. 
And  the  time  comes  when  we  are  in  the 
chariot  race,  when  we  win  the  victory — when 
we  strike  the  blow,  when  we  stand  and  do 
not  fall — with  the  strength  we  got  back  there 
in  the  clouds  when  we  were  pulling  on  the 

oar. 

*     *     * 

Standing  at  Frank's  grave  I  thanked  God 
for  the  oar.  I  am  not  an  example  of  suc- 
cess. But  I  am  a  very  grateful  pupil  in  the 
first  reader  class  of  the  University  of  Hard 
Knocks. 


126 


VI 

Looking  Forward 

THIS  IS  the  Best  Day  of  My  Life! 
It  is  the  Best  Day  of  Your  Life.  It 
is  the  Best  Day  of  Everybody's  Life. 

All  of  us  are  wiser,  stronger,  greater  to- 
day than  ever  before.  All  of  the  past  is  ours 
today  at  compound  interest.  All  the  past 
has  been  spent  to  prepare  for  today. 

I  am  so  glad  for  today ! 

I  am  so  sorry  for  the  one  who  doesn't  be- 
lieve it.  I  am  sorry  for  the  one  who  weeps 
on  my  shoulder  and  says,  "I  wish  I  were  a 
child  again.  O,  if  I  could  only  live  my  life 
over.  I  was  happy  when  I  was  a  child,  and 
I'm  not  happy  now.  Those  were  the  best 
days  of  my  life." 

Wake  up,  my  friend !  Your  clock  has  run 
down!  You  say  the  child  is  happy?  The 
babe  doesn't  know  what  happiness  is,  be- 
cause the  babe  hasn't  known  anything  else. 
You've  got  to  live  long  and  get  bumped  and 
disappointed  and  cry  yourself  to  sleep  before 
you  can  know  what  happiness  really  is. 

127 


The  University  of  Hard  Knocks 

We  don't  know  how  to  appreciate  the  day 
until  we've  been  in  the  night. 

We  don't  know  how  to  appreciate  food 
until  we've  been  hungry ;  nor  rest  until  we've 
been  fatigued. 

Do  you  know  what  heaven  is?  Just  get 
the  toothache  and  then  wait  until  it  quits. 

That  is  heaven. 

*     *     * 

Waiting  to  the  "Second  Table" 

I'm  sorry  for  a  child.  I  don't  want  to  be 
a  child  again.  I  don't  want  to  live  it  over. 
I  wouldn't  take  my  chances  going  thru  it  all 
again  and  getting  here  today.  I  deserved 
killing  a  thousand  times.  I  don't  see  how  I 
escaped. 

My  advice  to  children  is,  Don't  be  a  child 
any  longer  than  you  have  to  be,  for  it's  bet- 
ter farther  on. 

Life's  great  truth  is.  It's  Better  Farther 
On. 

I  remember  when  a  child,  the  elder  used 
to  come  to  our  house  and  stay  for  dinner. 
He  used  to  be  the  easiest  man  to  get  to  stay 
for  dinner  I  ever  saw.  That  was  the  big 
dinner.    Mother  always  outdid  herself  when 

128 


Looking  Forward 

the  elder  stayed  for  dinner.  She'd  uncork 
about  eleven  cans  of  fruit,  and  jelly  and  jam 
and  watermelon  preserves.  And  there  would 
be  a  great  big  plate  full  of  fried  chicken, 
and  gravy  and  mashed  potatoes  I 

I  could  hardly  wait  for  dinner,  I  was  so 
hungry.  Then  the  elder  would  sit  down  at 
the  head  of  the  table,  and  father  would  say 
to  me,  '*Boy,  you  run  along  into  the  other 
room  and  wait  I    There  isn't  room  for  you." 

I  used  to  go  into  that  other  room  while 
they  ate  the  big  dinner,  and  nearly  starve. 
I  was  the  hungriest  one  in  the  house,  and 
waiting  because  I  was  a  child.  I  used  to  sit 
there  and  yammer  thru  a  crack  in  the  door 
at  them  eating  the  big  dinner  out  in  the  other 
room,  and  I  used  to  think  heaven  must  be  a 
place  where  everybody  gets  to  eat  at  the  first 
table! 

I  would  see  the  dinner  going  fast.  There 
was  only  one  piece  of  chicken  left  on  the 
plate — the  neck.     O,  Lord,  save  the  neck! 

And  the  elder  took  that! 

Then  I  have  seen  that  good  elder  come  into 
the  room  where  I  was  starving,  he  full  of 
that  good  dinner.     He  would  come  up  to 

129 


The  University  of  Hard  Knocks 

that  little  hungry  wretch  waiting  behind  the 
door.  "Brother  Parlette,  is  this  your  boy?" 
He  would  put  his  hand  in  benediction  on  my 
head — my  head  wasn't  the  place  that  needed 
the  benediction! — and  say,  "My  boy,  you 
want  to  have  a  good  time  now." 

Now!  With  all  the  chicken  gone! 

"You  want  to  have  a  good  time  now,  my 
boy,  because  you  are  seeing  the  best  days  of 
your  life  right  now." 

The  dear  old  liar!  I  was  seeing  the  worst 
days  of  my  life.  If  there  is  anybody  short- 
changed— if  there  is  anybody  who  doesn't 
have  a  good  time,  it's  a  child. 


Each  Year  Brings  More 
I  don't  say  this  to  make  a  child  unhappy. 
A  child  is  happy.  A  boy  is  happy  with  fuzz 
on  his  upper  lip.  But  he'll  be  happier  when 
his  lip  feels  more  like  mine — like  a  piece  of 
sandpaper.  Why,  there  are  chapters  and 
chapters  of  happiness  undreamed  of  in  his 
philosophy.  Perhaps  there  is  a  time  coming 
when  all  the  milhons  of  girls  in  the  world 
will  boil  down  into  one  girl — "the  only  girl 

130 


Looking  Forward 

in  the  world"  for  him.  The  time  may  come 
when  he'll  find  her,  or  she'll  find  him,  accord- 
ing to  the  suffragette  indications.  He'll  take 
her  little,  soft,  white  hand  into  his  big,  rough, 
horny  fist  and  say,  "That  little  hand  will 
never  be  put  into  dishwater." 

Classic  fib ! 

They'll  think  they  can't  possibly  be  hap- 
pier than  that,  but  those  two  precious  chil- 
dren are  only  beginning.  Wait  till  you're 
my  age.  I  know  that  far,  and  I  know  it's 
the  best  today.  Anybody  in  this  audience 
older  than  I  am,  I  envy  you;  you're  nearer 
heaven.  Anybody  in  this  audience  younger 
than  I  am,  I  pity  you ;  hurry  up ! 

A  child  can  be  full  of  joy.  But  when  the 
child  is  full  of  joy,  it  doesn't  hold  enough 
joy.  Not  more  than  a  pint;  then  it  slops 
over. 

Afterwhile  that  same  child  will  hold  a 
quart  of  joy,  and  not  make  half  so  much 
fuss. 

I  hold  a  gallon! 

Some  of  j'ou  folks  must  hold  a  barrel!  I 
don't  mean  circumference.  I  mean  every 
vear  increases  our  capacity  for  joy.  Our  life 

131 


The  Universiiy  of  Hard  Knocks 

begins  small.  But  it  grows  and  widens  with 
the  years.  Bigger  and  bigger  it  becomes 
mitil  this  old  world  actually  gets  too  small 
for  us  and  presently  the  fences  go  down  and, 
hooray!  we're  in  heaven! 


We  Cannot  Geow  Old 

So  we  cannot  grow  old.  Our  life  never 
stops.    It  goes  on  and  on  forever. 

That  is  why  we  cannot  grow  old.  Any- 
thing that  doesn't  stop  cannot  have  age.  This 
hall  will  grow  old;  it  will  stop.  This  stage 
will  grow  old ;  it  will  stop.  Even  my  lecture 
will  grow  old ;  it  will  stop  I 

But  you  and  I  will  never  grow  old,  for 
God  cannot  grow  old;  and  you  and  I  will 
go  on  living  as  long  as  God  lives. 

I  am  not  worried  today  over  what  I  do 
not  know.  I  used  to  be  worried.  I  used  to 
say,  "I  have  not  time  to  answer  you  now!" 
But  today  it  is  such  a  relief  to  look  people  in 
the  face  and  say,  "I  don't  know."  Some 
day  I'll  know.  Every  day  the  answer  comes 
to  something. 

132 


Looking  Forward 

It  will  take  an  eternity  to  know  an  in- 
finity! 

*     ♦     * 

I  discover  that  the  man  who  says  the  world 
is  degenerating,  has  been  looking  in  the  glass 
too  much. 

I  discover  the  world  is  all  looking-glass. 
We  see  around  us  just  what  we  have  in  our 
own  heart. 

I'm  sorry  for  the  man  who  says  this  is  a 
bad  world,  for  he  sees  himself. 

I'm  sorry  for  the  man  who  says,  "Every- 
body is  trying  to  rob  you."  Instinctively,  I 
put  my  hand  on  my  wallet. 

If  we  call  the  world  bad,  it  shouts  back 
like  an  echo,  "Bad!  bad!  bad  I" 

If  we  sing  to  the  world,  it  sings  back  to  us. 

If  we  love  the  world,  it  loves  us. 


Defeats  That  Become  Victoeies 
Children,  when  you  hear  an  orator  speak 
and  you  note  the  ease  and  power  of  his  work, 
do  you  ever  think  of  the  years  of  struggle 
he  spent  in  preparing?  Do  you  ever  think 
of  the  times  that  orator  tried  to  speak  and 

133 


The  University  of  Hard  Knocks 

failed,  and  went  back  to  his  room  in  disgrace, 
mortified  and  broken-hearted?  Thru  it  all 
there  came  the  discipline  and  experience  and 
grim  resolve  that  resulted  in  the  successful 
orator  you  now  hear. 

When  you  hear  the  musician  and  see  the 
ease  of  that  performance,  do  you  think  of 
the  years  of  struggle  and  overcoming  neces- 
sary to  do  it  with  that  finish  and  grace  ?  That 
is  the  story  of  the  actor,  the  author  and  every 
other  one  of  attainment. 

Do  you  note  that  the  tropics,  the  countries 
with  the  balmiest  climate,  produce  the  weak- 
est peoples  ?  Do  you  note  that  the  conquer- 
ing races  are  those  that  struggle  with  both 
heat  and  cold?  Be  glad  you  live  in  a  land 
where  the  mercury  goes  below  zero — even  if 
you  are  not  in  the  coal  business.  The  tropics 
are  the  geographical  Gussies. 

Do  you  note  that  people  grow  more  in  lean 
}^ears  than  in  fat  years  ?  Crop  failures  aren't 
calamities,  but  blessings  in  disguise.  People 
go  to  the  devil  with  full  pockets;  they  turn 
to  God  when  hunger  hits  them.  "Is  not  this 
Babylon  that  I  have  builded?"     Belshazzar 

134 


Looking  Forward 

will  tell  you  that  the  "hard  times"  are  the 
Needful  Knocks. 

Do  you  remember  that  they  had  io  lock 
John  Bunyan  in  Bedford  jail  before  he 
would  write  that  immortal  "Pilgrims'  Prog- 
ress"? Perhaps  some  of  us  should  go  to  jail 
to  do  our  best  work! 

Do  you  remember  that  one  musician  be- 
came deaf  before  he  wrote  the  music  the 
world  will  always  hear?  Do  you  remember 
that  one  author  became  blind  before  he  wrote 
"Paradise  Lost"? 

Do  you  remember  that  Saul  of  Tarsus  was 
educated  at  the  feet  of  Gamaliel,  with  wealth 
and  honor  at  his  command?  But  he  had  to 
be  blinded  and  scourged  and  humiliated  be- 
fore he  could  become  the  great  apostle  to 
the  Gentiles. 

Do  you  remember  that  the  Bull  Run  bat- 
tle must  be  fought  before  you  come  to  Ap- 
pomattox ? 

Do  you  see  all  around  you  that  Success  is 
ever  the  Phoenix  rising  from  the  ashes  of 
defeat  ? 

Then  when  you  graduate  and  you  stand 
in  a  row  with  your  diplomas  in  your  hands 

135 


The  University  of  Hard  Knocks 

and  the  relatives  and  friends  shake  your  hand 
and  say,  "Success  to  you  I" — I  shall  take 
your  hand  and  say,  "Defeat  to  you!"  "And 
a  black  eye  to  you !"  "And  plenty  of  bumps 
to  your 

For  I  want  you  to  become  Great,  and 
Strong,  and  Successful,  and  Happy,  and 
Educated! 


136 


VII 

Getting  to  Life's  Summit 

ONE  DAY  in  California  I  climbed 
Mount  Lowe.  Some  of  you,  no 
doubt,  have  climbed  that  old  brown 
sentinel  of  the  orange  belt  of  Southern  Cali- 
fornia. That  day  I  went  from  Los  Angeles, 
"city  of  the  angels" — and  real  estate  agents, 
to  Pasadena,  and  then  to  Altadena,  and  those 
other  little  "denas"  and  things  every  half- 
mile  till  I  got  to  Mount  Lowe's  feet,  or  foot- 
hills. 

We  went  up  Rubio  Canyon  until  we  came 
to  the  triangular  thing  the  guide-book  calls 
an  "engineering  miracle."  We  got  into  this 
and  then  were  boosted — no,  yanked — thirty- 
five  hundred  feet  upward.  We  quickly  rose 
out  of  that  hungry  looking  chasm,  up  the 
side  of  that  granite  cliff  to  the  top  of  Echo 
Mountain,  with  only  two  little  rails  and  some 
ropes  between  me  and — depending  upon  how 
I  had  lived ! 

Then  on  the  top  of  Echo  Mountain  we  got 
out  of  that  lifter  thing,  and  discovered  it 

137 


The  University  of  Hard  Knocks 

wasn't  a  mountain-top  at  all,  but  a  shelf  on 
the  side  of  the  greater  mountain.  Here  we 
got  into  a  trolley-car  and  went  about  five 
miles  farther  up  the  side  of  Mount  Lowe, 
without  a  straight  rail  in  the  track.  Every 
minute  a  new  thrill — and  no  two  thrills  alike! 
Five  miles  of  winding  and  squirming,  and 
twisting  and  ducking,  and  dodging  and  sum- 
mersaulting ! 

We  went  over  so  many  wooden  bridges 
that  squeaked.  Where  I  would  grab  the  seat 
and  lift! 

We  came  to  the  headliner  thrill.  Money 
positively  refunded  at  the  gate  if  not  as  ad- 
vertised !  I  saw  it  coming !  Oo-oo-oo !  The 
car  ran  out  on  a  wooden  shelf  that  man  had 
nailed  to  the  perpendicular  face  of  the  rock 
wall.  Where  my  life  hung  on  the  honesty 
of  the  man  who  drove  the  nails. 

I  wondered  if  he  had  been  working  by  the 
day  or  by  the  job  when  he  drove  those  nails! 

I  would  look  over  the  edge  of  the  car,  down 
— down — down ! 

I  would  look  on  the  other  side  of  the  car 
at  the  face  of  the  cliff  we  were  hugging,  up — 
up — up!   About  a  mile  either  way,  straight 

138 


Getting  to  Life's  Summit 

up  or  straight  down.  And  no  place  to  re- 
sign! 

We  were  five  thousand  feet  when  the  car 
stopped.  We  were  on  another  shelf  they 
call  Alpine  Tavern.  Science  here  surren- 
dered. Mount  Lowe's  summit  was  eleven 
hundred  feet  above — three  miles  more  of  a 
climb  up  that  wriggling  trail. 

All  alone  that  forenoon  I  went  up  that 

trail. 

*     *     * 

Getting  Above  the  Clouds 

And  finally  I  got  on  a  rock  flat  as  this 
floor — Mount  Lowe's  summit,  more  than  a 
mile  above  the  plain.  You  can't  describe 
such  a  wonderful  experience  with  this  poor 
human  vocabulary.  You  must  live  it.  That 
pure,  clear  day  I  could  look  down  thru  the 
swimming,  quivering  space  into  the  citrus 
empire  of  Southern  California,  all  spread  out 
in  one  great  mosaic  of  turquoise  and  amber 
and  emerald.  My  field-glass  swept  vistas 
of  many  miles  in  one  great  panoramic  pic- 
tiu-e.  The  miles  were  an  inch  long  on  my 
Mount  Lowe  map.    It  took  an  hour  to  look 

139 


The  University  of  Hard  Knocks 

in  any  direction,  there  was  so  much  to  seel 

Right  below  me  Los  Angeles,  and  Pasa- 
dena !  To  my  right,  perhaps  forty  miles,  the 
Pacific  Ocean.  It  seemed  so  near  I  could 
throw  a  pebble  into  the  waves.  But  when  I 
tried  it,  it  fell  on  my  toes.  How  a  mountain 
does  deceive! 

To  my  back  the  granite  cliff  rising  higher. 
And  I  discovered  that  Mount  Lowe's  sum- 
mit is  just  another  shelf  on  the  side  of  the 
higher  Sierras.  Over  at  my  left  "Old  Baldy," 
twelve  thousand  feet,  and  snow  eternally  on 
his  head. 

I  get  a  better  vision  of  the  Infinite.  I  am 
in  one  of  His  great  workshops  I 

Presently  clouds  come  in  the  valley  below 
me.  I  had  gotten  above  the  clouds!  The 
clouds  grew  blacker  and  spread  out  until 
they  covered  the  valley.  Presently  it 
dawned  on  me  that  rain  is  falling  in  the  val- 
ley. It  is  a  real  storm  down  there.  The 
people  are  saying,  "It  is  raining;  the  sun 
doesn't  shine;  the  sky  is  all  gone." 

But  I  was  standing  on  the  mountain  top. 
The  sun  was  shining  on  me,  and  the  sky  was 
all  serene  over  my  head.    The  storm  was  all 

140 


Getting  to  Life*8  Summit 

down  under  my  feet.    I  had  gotten  above  the 
storm,  into  the  sunshine  I 

I  had  gotten  a  mile  above  the  valley  and 
there   were  millions   of  miles  of   sunshine 

above  me. 

«     «     « 

Presently  the  storm  was  over.  The  val- 
ley came  out  all  the  brighter  for  the  wash- 
ing. I  went  clambering  down  the  mountain- 
side. But  before  the  journey  was  done,  the 
shadows  came  spreading  again  over  the  val- 
ley. 

Then  I  looked  over  in  the  southwest  and 
saw  the  sun  sinking.  Lower  and  lower  it 
dipped  until  its  red  lips  kissed  the  blue  cheek 
of  the  ocean.  The  molten  glory  and  the 
liquid  rainbows  spread  out  over  the  south- 
west, and  the  shadows  came  eastward  over 
the  valley,  wider  and  wider,  until  presently 
the  valley  was  black  with  shadows.  The 
lights  began  to  twinkle  in  the  cities  of  the 
valley,  and  I  knew  it  was  night  down  there. 
The  people  were  saying,  "The  sun  doesn't 
shine;  the  night  has  come." 

But  as  I  turned  and  looked  back  up  the 
mountain,  I  saw  the  glorious  radiance  of  the 

141 


The  University  of  Hard  Knocks 

sun  bathing  Mount  Lowe's  summit,  while 
the  darkness  filled  the  valley.  It  was  night 
in  the  valley  and  day  on  the  mountain-top! 

*     *     * 

OGOD!  I  HEAR  THY  VOICE.  I 
hear  it  in  the  valley  and  on  the  moun- 
tain-top. I  hear  it  in  the  storm,  in 
the  night  and  the  light ! 

Child  of  humanity,  are  you  in  the  storm? 
Climb  higher  and  you  come  to  the  calm. 

Are  you  in  the  night?  Climb  yet  higher, 
and  you  come  to  the  light. 

For  the  peace  and  the  light  are  right  above 
us — above  the  storm  and  the  night. 

And  life  is  the  journey  from  the  storm 
and  the  night  to  the  peace  and  the  light. 

I  have  been  climbing  my  life-mountain 
these  years.  I  have  stumbled  and  fallen  so 
many  times.  I  have  said,  "I  cannot  carry 
my  burden  longer."  But  now  I  find  myself 
farther  up  the  mountain-side,  and  my  eyes 
open  wider  and  I  look  back  and  see  that  all 
the  bumps  were  lessons.  All  the  rocks  were 
steps  in  the  great  stairway  that  somehow  had 
to  be  built  to  make  me  climb  higher. 

142 


Getting  to  Lifers  Summit 

Every  day  gets  better,  because  every  day 
we  get  a  Kttle  farther  up.  Every  day  we 
look  down  upon  some  storms  that  used  to 
terrify  us.  Every  day  we  rise  above  the 
legacy  of  our  limitations.  None  of  these 
things  move  us  now. 

Today  is  our  best  day,  because  today  we 
are  highest  up. 

So  our  last  days  of  earth  become  our  best. 

Some  day  my  night  will  come.  It  will 
spread  over  the  valley  of  material  things. 
But  I  shall  stand  on  the  mountain-top,  my 
Nebo,  in  the  day,  and  the  night  will  be  down 
in  the  valley  with  the  storms.  I  shall  find 
life's  mountain-top  just  another  shelf  on  the 
side  of  the  Mountain  of  Infinite  Unfolding. 

I  shall  have  risen  but  the  first  mile.  I 
shall  have  the  millions  of  miles  yet  above  me ! 

I  shall  find  this  mountain-top  day  just  a 
grander  Commencement  Day,  with  Com- 
mencement Daj^s  and  Master's  Degrees 
never  ending  as  I  rise  thru  Eternity! 


143 


3 


THE  LIBRARY 
UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 

Santa  Barbara 


THIS  BOOK  IS  DUE  ON  THE  LAST  DATE 
STAMPED  BELOW. 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILI 

l!l     III     III     III    I 


A  A      000  053116 


